The fire you started in the closet
has burned for days without spreading.
It has consumed the Christmas gifts
we hid ten Christmases ago,
scorched the stairway to the attic
where Grandpa’s bones tarnish like brass
and blackened the family name
kept in a box we thought fireproof.
For days we taste that carbon slur
and smell pouty blue curls of smoke
and expect the fire to burst
into the conscious parts of the house
and destroy our book-club library
and Chippendale coffee table
and collection of pornographic
woodcarvings from Guatemala.
Why did you ignite this blaze?
Because I deflated the plastic
Santa you placed on the lawn?
Because I fed cookies and milk
to the friendly Mormons who claimed
their god demands I marry
Janet, Nikki, Gloria, and Nan
as well as you again and again?
Because your favorite TV show
rewrote its scripts and became
a comic cop show burdened
with expensive Polish jokes?
You set that fire because cries
and whispers from that closet
have caused blood clots and hernias
in people who listen too closely
to the voices in their heads.
I attack with the extinguisher
and stifle the lonely blue flame.
Not much damage. The Christmas gifts
had gone unloved for a decade,
the family name’s a Polish joke,
Grandpa’s bones hardly rattle,
and the scorched attic stairway,
which we almost never ascend,
needs only a fresh coat of paint.
