Two full years after the purchase and sale,
with flashlight and ladder you finally
push aside the ceiling’s trap door to make
the pilgrimage to the attic of your house.
Planks and beams oxidized to ochre,
umber, and browns as rich as caramel,
at the west gable end by the chimney
you find some newer boards nailed like a lid
across the charred lip of a hole that fire
had burned through the roof, like an eye closed
upon a close call all those years ago,
when the house almost went up in flames.
How many days of sunlight bathed that space
until the repair, until the commotion
stirred in the home by this small disaster
was eased with soothing words and fresh timber?
And how many nights after the fire broke out,
when smoke and cinder rose from the hole
like vision, before its inhabitants
were finally able to look away
from that terrible glimpse of heaven?
