For Firemen Joseph Graffagnino and Robert Beddia,

lost in the Deutsche Bank Building, NYC, August 18, 2007

 

Sizzle, gallop, pushing spew of spark and angle,

fire beyond its normal rage and human border,

taunting skin. And Joseph’s cage is now collapsing,

barely, very barely, managing to hold his

thawing heart’s despairing claw, its shrinking language.

Landscape still beneath him, arms still blindly flailing,

Bobby must remember that to squelch the blazing

means to resurrect deceit, to conjure just the

sound of water on the tongue. The goddamned fools who

seek to save a wall must swallow razors, forkfuls

of a dimming light, must pray to conjure current.

Shuttered throats go craving for a gasp, a way to

scare the day aloose, to flood those shrinking roads with

fuel, whiskey—anything that flows. We’re running 

out of air. The burning riddle-spits, confounding

wind, and whittles towards the bursting bones of both our

boys. Days after, soft and sated smoke will drift like

bland religions up, till someone late for work—some 

sweating stressed New Yorker who barely snags the 6—

slams himself, panting, sideways in a seat. It’s hot 

as holy hell he spits, We’re going to die in here.