Too Slow for Escape: A Letter to Young Man
Too Slow for Escape: A Letter to Young Man
(The Flash)
Once, I ran into a burning building—
the flames danced like a hedge of boxwood staggering
in the wind. The kitchen was a blast furnace.
The blender was blackened, the refrigerator
melted. The cabinets clattered and belched.
The living room couch roared,
its cushions bred embers. The light
bulbs in the ceiling fan were wax
figures, stretching, drawn to the heat,
a moment from bursting.
The bedrooms were cotton balls of smoke.
The walls seasoned with soot.
The breath in my lungs was enough for me
to dash from Boston to Philly, enough for me
to search this house a thousand times, enough for me
to peek beneath the bottom bunk
in the charcoal gray room at the end
of the hallway—the one wallpapered
with Elmo and Dora the Explorer.
I run so fast,
in the time it takes to build a fire I can
circle the world. Maybe that’s why my costume is red
—even I’m not sure anymore. Maybe that’s why,
at those wonderful escape velocities,
my lungs clutch one another like a dead mother
holding the husk of her child—both of them
drawn by the flames into that old familiar, fetal arc, waiting
to be saved.
No matter how far or how fast I run,
I taste smoke in my lungs.
*This poem appears in Prick of the Spindle
Taken from “…hide behind me…”
click to hear me read this poem
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