Burning, burning—everything is burning.
You walk backwards down the stairs, smoke
flies past into hallways. Paint, leaden and melting
in the air, falls from singed walls. Drapes explode
in purples and golds and you’re trapped on the floor by the front door,
grasping a handle that’s hot enough to melt flesh
from your eyes. Black snow falls from the ceilings
as children sing Ring Around the Rosie on your front lawn.
They are blind, their black fogged glasses cling to expressionless faces.
Adults in perfect houses bake muffins while ashes
fall off of your walls. They bury you.
You are up to your chin in soot now, and the sweat
your face creates leaves gray pools around your neck. You hear
the children as they sing, cracking voices through cracking window
glass, and you wonder if their parents ever burn as the
creaking, clacking, flaming beams crush you where you lay.
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