11/5/2017 Fire to Fire by Michael Dwayne SmithFire to Fire M has not been cremated, has not even been near the fires of Santa Rosa, though he keeps looking into the hills from his front yard at night. M has a friend, a brother really, flash evacuated three a.m. —jump cuts grab what’s in front of you steer the car on instinct orange cough lung heat undulating landscape traffic smoked bees which way which way is away when can I breathe-- if they had been asleep: cremation. And He cremated the world in six days. M is watchful. Stays up reading about the woman who ran from bullets fired by a Vegas mass-shooter to witness her home turning to plume on a stranger’s TV. She tells the reporter, “There are things that need to get done, and I’ll deal with the rest later.” Reads of the couple who dove into a neighbor’s pool, endangered sea cows for six hours while the world was consumed. And a couple trapped in a house, him a hundred, her ninety-eight, found in each other’s arms, just bone and ash. The drone videos of day three are Hiroshima. And on the seventh day He rested. M thinks about bearing witness. The burning down of D.C., Democracy, decency, all our little towns. We won’t go home again. The New Americans of New America: just ash and bone. And in the sky, behind an ochrous shroud of smoke, the bloodshot eye of a dying god. ![]() Bio: Michael Dwayne Smith lives near a Mojave Desert ghost town with his family and rescued animals. His most recent book is Roadside Epiphanies (Cholla Needles Press, 2017). Twice nominated for the Pushcart Prize, his work haunts many literary houses--The Cortland Review, New World Writing, Skidrow Penthouse, Word Riot, Heron Tree, Pirene's Fountain, Gravel, San Pedro River Review, Monkeybicycle, burntdistrict--and has been widely anthologized. When not writing or teaching, MDS is editor of Mojave River Press & Review. 11/5/2017 09:29:15 am
This is an amazing poem, Michael Dwayne Smith always blows me away, but he's really DONE IT this time.
Allen Rice
11/12/2017 04:36:49 pm
This hits home big time. Gave me the same chills and fear I had at the moment we were evacuated.
Weesa Boyd
1/26/2018 03:24:09 pm
😳 I’ve wondered about you. Thanks for sharing a great poem about this tragic situation. Comments are closed.
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