The old neighborhood is burning down, the lawns awash
_            _in oranges and reds.
I have come running

back to save our house. My mother is lounging in
_            _the kitchen, filing her nails.
“Relax,” she tells me,

“The fire chief called, says this is the new normal.” I cannot
_            _believe she is not hysterical.
I shake her,

but she does not move; she is only a shell, alive for the sake
_            _of appearances.
I grab what can be saved—a piano leg—

but it crumbles in a crescendo of sharps and flats.
I want my sister to give up the phone; what gossip
_            _could trump this? But she will not budge.

Down cellar, my brother is beating the heck out
_            _of a punching bag; at least it is not my face;
and when I locate my father,

he is plastered to the liquor cabinet, where he is
_            _using the tip of a lit cigar to ignite the bourbon.
Just when all feels lost,

the fire department volunteers show up in shiny,
_            _red corvettes, gather in a circle around
_            _the crumbling frame of the house, and piss

on the charcoal timbers, laughing as they tell dirty jokes
_            _about some hot chick on the block they wish
_            _they were inside instead.

I scream for them to stop, but they do not hear; I beat
_            _on their heads, but they are all smoke.
In a final burst,

as if from out of the Milky Way, hot coals
_            _rain down into my hands—
little beating hearts

separated from those who love them.
I want to carry them far, far away to where I came from
_            _before I was born.