Fire Escape
Low-flying helicopters are again dusting
the urban crops with their searchlight.
A dumpster full of chipped china
and soiled clothes but nothing edible.
This fire escape hangs like a noose,
the condemned’s lights all but out.
Acrid metal lingers in the air,
but everyone knows the smell of that burn.
The park and dump have merged
across two blocks of empty lots.
This fire escape swings
like an ancient vacancy sign.
This block’s headline: DEVASTATED BY FIRE,
the next was merely put out of its misery.
Smashed glass a discoball in the street,
glitter of car accidents and home invasions.
This land sans-window tax,
yet window sills still house plywood
as if we were all penny-pinching architects.
This fire escape dangles like a Columbian necktie,
a de-boarded doorway the obligatory black eye.
This fire escape didn’t escape the fire
like its past residents. Mangled
and burned in the housing collapse.
Zebulon Huset teaches and publishes a blog called Notebooking Daily. His work is in The Southern Review, Portland Review, Roanoke Review & Harpur Palate among others.
Fire Escape is a post from: Straylight Literary Magazine