Pudding Magazine #69

the conflagration of our inheritance

we clean
 
we clean to bare walls and floors
rooms elongate like feral cats
 
heirlooms bonfired on a dead lawn                                            
we add faux condolences                            
drive truckloads through a narrow jamb   
the dancing fire hesitates
 
dreams, nightmares, bastard spawn of
T.V. and movie soundtracks
resold to insomniacs all the toss-turn night
WalpurgisNacht rattles our heads
 
we wild
 
smoldering cushions burst and flow   
dolls cleansed of their defilements  
contort in their meltings   
 
journals, albums, memoirs              curl
orange and red - ringlets to ashen flight
 
we clean
till what remains
won't bleach or burn
 
we dance, inviolate charwomen
Jeanne d'Arcs in the purifying flames
 
till our bones are soot, our blackened lungs
remnants of screaming embers,
Pompeians fired in Vesuvian kilns
we, nightingales; we, maids of heaven
 
how the Ancients honored us
in tapestries set before a queen, in the nights'
blooming, in a feathered voice
 
— Yes, we cry, Yes,
that's how we learned
to curse and sing
 
we clean…