We drive two hours to escape the ash. In my friend’s new SUV with the kids tucked into a movie in the back it’s easy to pretend she’s my pretty wife, our baby elegantly potty-trained, the snacks of high caliber neatly contained, the world not alight.
Not dead, not beautiful, not afire, / this bush—so, no God. No alarms, either. / In the heat its blooms hang like rags, tired / as Mary’s first Christmas.
He looks up from his magazine at the beach ball globe floating near the edge of the pool. The familiar pink and blue and yellow continents painted across turquoise seas look like harmless flowers….
The usual excuses: spring untethered its feathered pollen / up my nose / and everyone else was doing it. Forgive me, father, / this was like jumping / off a cliff because others did….
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