RAG SMELL. FIRE

RAG SMELL.  FIRE smell.  Bed blacked.  Bowl.
The quiet come from living done.
Shadow built the walls, holed and cribbed with light.
Vine felt cracks and fingered in.
Were sky inside
and what the wind-holes left, a wind.
Ay walk the last. What were floor
heaves rock and root.
Flame-eaten walls, rubs of wood,
scraps the burn left licked
now licked with dirt.

Copyright © 2012 by Joan Houlihan. Used with permission of the author.