Pyro

You’re gonna strike the match—

You’re gonna strike it—

Flame the bank up into pods

          of fire, be

          a masterhand—   

                   —

And someone said, Gasoline.

Someone said, We have to change the images

          inside their heads, said

Gasoline?

And motor oil, he bought at a mini-mart.

                   —

And the cat said Don’t   

         even though it was dead

and the squirrel said Don’t

and the little dog missing an eye and a leg

         even though they were dead, said

Don’t Don’t

but you did it anyway.

And someone said, That boy is sick—

And someone said, It was kind of pretty

         when you didn’t know what it was from the road.

                  —

Hours now, by the trashed banks, counting

         the colored

glass—

Brown for beer. Green

         for the fizzy water, clear

for anything and

         tail lights smashed, cars mucked like

big cats

         trapped in tar, who

ate the flesh right off their legs, if they were

         lighter

they could hurry home, they could float

         on

home—

         killed cat dead at the end of your stick, who could   

do that,

         shot in the head—

     

         Like in the shows where the cop

cleans up his town,

         then the ambulance comes for the drowned.

                 —

You felt bad, so you did it.

You thought it was pretty, so you

         did it again.

You felt charged and buoyant

         as you picked your way home

         to the blue-lit fatherless den—

So you did it again.

The BB’ed mutt, leg smashed, home-bum toasting you

          with his beer as you

dragged it

          to the sludgy bank, the match, the gas, the

pile of tires someone had dumped, were you

          dumped? you had asked

after another one left, and she had

          slapped you,

and slapped—

You were an ambulance, you could see she had drowned—

Like in the shows where the warrior

         collects his dead and

brings them to the shore,

         to burn them

in their body-boats, release

         the spiritual

                  —

smoke—

And the parents said,   

         Didn’t he have a house key around his neck,

didn’t he have a pager, an electrical tether

         to a list of chores and a stocked refrigerator—

And the teachers said Yes, but what

          were the images inside his head, they   

see it and they make it   

           be—

And you put it in a tire, your

          viking boat,   

you set it on fire and it kept afloat

          as it sailed down the river—

to the heaven of not being

          here.