Bright Pittsburgh Morning

This must happen just after I die: At sunrise

I bend over my grandparents' empty house in Hazelwood

and pull it out of the soft cindered earth by the Mon River.

Copper tubing and electric lines hang down like hairs.

The house is the size of a matchbox. I sprinkle bits

of broken pallets, seeded grass, fingernails, and tamarack

needles in the open door of the porch. I scratch a Blue Tip

and blow vowels of fire through the living room,

the tunneled hallway. Flames run up the wooden stairs.

I put my ear beside the hot kitchen window

to hear the crackling voices of cupboards and walls.

I flip the welder's mask:

Sun off the rectangular glass, a rose glint before the white torch.

Source: Poema (University of Arizona Press, 2009)