watching one bubble grow, building toward the shore,
rising up to her waist,
looking at it in petrified wonder,
she thinks it might take the shore with it and continue to grow,
something is about to get birthed,
At that moment, the galosh comes loose and sails through the air, smacking into her closet doors, rattling them loudly in their track. Beddy knows this woke Ma, but she also knows Ma won’t come to check on her.
the bubble breaks open and spills out flame
the whole pond burns, her at the center,
feeling the flames embracing her,
smelling her flesh cooking,
it doesn’t hurt that bad,
She swoops up her pile of linens and cradles them under her arm. She eyes the dress draped over the chair. Washing it will do nothing. It needs to be put out of its misery, and out of her sight. She snatches it from the chair and stuffs it without ceremony into her wastebasket with the tissues and sick. Lifts the bag from the basket with a tug on the drawstring, then opens the door to her room softly and steps out into the hall.
wading back to shore, wreathed in flame,
walking back to the newspaper wall,
touching it, the flames leave her body,
the wall is the wick,
and the forest goes up,
the fire is light and roaring sound and touch and smell,
the burning trees are crystal towers,
blackening, cracking, toppling at her feet,
She tiptoes down the stairs and through the living room, remarking in pain when her bare feet catch crumbs of bread that have crusted into barbs. Her mother would be a failed homemaker, but you are only a failure if you try.
climbing through darkness,
everything charred in front of her,
no sun above her,
the fire is the only light, glowing distantly like a sprite,
guiding her back up the trail,
She pads into the laundry room and deposits her linen load in the drier. She turns the dial to set the heat level but doesn’t hear the usual beep-bloop melody that reassures her it’s ready. The standby light is off, too. She tries the overhead light switch. Nothing. It’s a blackout. She’s been awake for a while now, functioning perfectly in the dark, but now that distinctly modern blend of pique and dread sets in. She toggles the switch again and again and again.
walking through her elementary school,
past the remains of a jungle gym,
a headless spring horse,
up the highway,
the street is barren of cars,
torches of trees like streetlamps,
up to the junior high on top of the hill,
She opens the side door and steps out into the night. There are no stars, and yet it is still brighter than inside the house. Even through the fog, the moon casts a low-fidelity glow. Maybe she should use that moonlight, what there is of it, to see the dress one last time. She peeks into the bag and it belches noxiousness into her face, but the sequins wink like mermaid scales. “You were too beautiful for this world,” she says, and re-cinches the bag and plunks it into the bin against the fence, sighing when she hears it hit the bottom. It’s a burial too close to the surface. If only her trash bin opened into a chute that led to the center of the earth.
climbing up onto a school bus,
looking down from the hill not at the city,
but at the curvature of the earth bending away from view,
watching through the stratosphere the fire surging over land and sea,
closing her eyes when she knows,
she has burned the whole world down.