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Example Poem

Where There’s Smoke
"Girls, get up," says father.

The urgent way he heads down the hall with his rooster comb of dark hair, swish of cotton pajama bottoms. My sisters and I sleep-stumble after him, wondering what in the night awoke him, drawing us out of our brooding beds.

"Do you smell smoke? Help me find the smoke."

Mother’s nest on the couch in the quiet living room is not long vacated. Cotton blanket left behind in a swung dash for words already said. Mother has trouble sleeping. Depression is the sinking part she can’t get out of.

Father is on all fours sniffing the carpet, uncomfortable chairs. We mimic him like a litter of sightless pups. He yanks off the couch cushions. We push down the muslin covering the serpentine springs. Inside the stuffing a small ember smolders.

We help him carry the couch out the front door in a bulky push-pull procession. He pours pitchers of faucet water into the couch, hoping to snuff out the spark. We hold our noses at the sharp odor of wet smoke and expensive tapestry. Our street is empty with only a few porch lights left on. Sprinklers turn on and off.

Father watches water seep out the bottom, running like a stream into the cracks of the front walk. He catches his breath, rooster comb teetering to one side.

"That should do it." He ushers us back to bed.

We wake in the early dawn to an inferno in our front yard, plumes of fire and smoke renting the suburban sky.

Mother, minimal in her sleeveless nightgown, watches her designer couch burn, leaning against father, who waits for the fire truck.

Our neighbors glance over, understanding that love can exist in the same house as disaster.

© Tori Grant Welhouse