I looked at photographs
of a California wildfire. Oneshowed remnants of a house--
scorched black beam lying
down. In the background,
black pine trunks stripped
of limbs. Foreground: ash
and a clothes dryer & a clothes
washer, side by side, leaning
on each other, their doors
melted off. They looked
back at me like vacant
eye sockets. In the past
they churned and spun
garments a family wore
as they laughed, ate,
quarreled, slept. In this
present, a cyclone of fire
struck them, vaporized
their dwelling. Now they
seem to gaze blindly
into a hellish future.
hans ostrom 2024
