Charred on the Black Breast

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    (Title from ‘Ceremony After a Fire Raid’ by Dylan Thomas)

    By Ellen Reich

    Eruptions

    in a wheat-field of flames

    send infant sparks

    falling like water fountains

    to dry ground

    before a belfry’s timber work

    is consumed

    by fiery mouths

    when a wind is born.

    I’ve seen the barren-wasted

    Malibu hills after wild-fire wars.

    Their stubble-leavings black

    and tortured. Stumps knob out

    like awkward cactus flowers

    on devil soil where ribbon snakes

    search for scorched meat

    on little skulls of rodents

    and birds have flown away

    toward their promise of stars.

    (Previously published in Blue Unicorn)

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