arson and the family tree
I plant an apple seed one summer,
out back where you lived,
once,
the empty house with rusted gates,
that haunts the back of your mind today,
and say
When this seed is a full grown tree,
when the branches unfurl
and the leaves grow green,
when I’m older and strong enough
to break off a branch and fashion
it into a bow
to fight off those who’d hurt us,
when the shade protects you
from the blind sun’s glare -
then I'll break off branches
one by one,
harvest the fruit
in twisted theophagy,
rake the leaves into
the empty rooms inside,
cover the entire place
in torn books and torn branches -
and we’ll watch as the past
warms our cold threadbare fingers
and flies off in white ash
and the smell of cinderwood smoke.
See?
We’ll burn the paper towns
where we forget that we were born,
and the paper hearts
that tore when we trod
on their tried-and-true tradition,
we’ll watch, safe, from the mountains
as our bodies turn to stone,
looking over our shoulders
at the wreckage we’ve caused -
tell me,
Would you do all this for me?
I look over my shoulder,
and for a second
we’re the arsonist angels of old,
the oneiric and ineffable,
who burned cities like anthills
and sunk the Old World
until the sun was drowned -
We’re screwed-up, scared of becoming
the stories we grew up scared of, fearing:
but can we play another game,
and play the angels all the same?