when you think
the moon is gone forever
just when they tell you
the war is over
just when the fire appears to be dying
a spark ignites the bark
banked in the stove’s corner
the camera focuses
on the dead black boy
brandishing a plastic gun
the first sliver of ivory whitens
the unfixed sky
And you watch as the flames
consume the split oak
crackling
blazing
till you can’t sit
in the room any longer
till those with you
begin to burn
Howard Faerstein’s full-length book of poetry, Dreaming of the Rain in Brooklyn, a Silver Concho selection, was published in 2013 by Press 53. A new book, Googootz and Other Poems is forthcoming this fall. His work can be found in numerous journals including Great River Review, Nimrod, CutThroat, Off the Coast, Rattle, upstreet, Mudfish and on-line in Gris-Gris, Peacock Journal, and Connotation. He is Associate Poetry Editor of CutThroat, A Journal of the Arts, and lives in Florence, Massachusetts.
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