by Narmadhaa Sivaraja
flame in the valley
A news-copter hovers as the city fills
with smoke. Below the
carved ruins of a house explosion
widen in the screen
in my palm—all the street names
smooth over and dilate—a real-time
pop-up video of why I can smell
burning
reminds me of an office job I had
up in a big glass tower—months
back, a hillside broke into orange
that danced along the spine
of a mound that resembled a long
dead brontosaurus—
office mouths ripped
wide with earned knowledge
we cherry tomato seeds
monitored the splits at the
seems—like the lines of motion
will splay wide to anyone
who will hear a tale of fire.
Before helicopters
and towers, there were just
watchers, mountains, hills
and what cold nights must have been
illuminated by knowing what
was coming. Maybe, watchers
and seers are a diverging pair.
I have watched for smoke
years, it seems. But I am still often
the last to know
how to make sense of what I have seen.
Kari Flickinger is the author of The Gull and the Bell Tower (Femme Salvé Books) and Ceiling Fan (Rare Swan Press). Her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, and the SFPA Rhysling Award. She is an alumna of UC Berkeley.
Narmadhaa Sivaraja is a nature and haiku fanatic who draws inspiration from photographs. See more of her work on The Chaos Within.