Wheel of Fire

They flared on the sea green

of the Subaru that seemed netted

under the unleafing maple,

a limestone moulage cut

from a quarry and cast

in immemorial arrest behind

Pete’s Absolute Asphalt truck,

throttling still when I alighted

and said, besides, in Aleppo once —

to nothing but the wind

photographed in sunlight;

the pavement’s watery brier

and children and their ghosts

and the air-raid screams of mothers,

once, in Aleppo, altered

that moment in history

when titihihihihi titihihihihi

those white houses,

stiffened with silence, broke

the private change, the public good

to dive into pits of leaves.