black plumes spiral
over fire’s hunger
mocking the haste
with which a home can burn
dark-soot clouds–
smothered and gasping
hovering over
ancient ire’s conflagration
then dissipating
never reaching heaven’s
promised emancipation
the lingering-gray mimim
filling the days
black, are our lungs
lovers, sycophants, arsonists
deep and greedy, our inhaled breath
the ash bends as it grows long
one hundred billion have passed
this, before–
our screaming, red arrival
and still
we dare believe
in fame
as a boy, as a criminal to be
I saw faces, chiseled from mahogany pain
imprisoned in the wood-panel grain
trapped in the floor boards
flat and aching
held flaccid within
chipped and scarred walls
painted over in pale hues, silenced
but never once, flying above
never once, loved
by the sky’s wide azure
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