Ripe
Mark Wisniewski
2 fire trucks
sped toward the neighborhood
beyond the hill
they began walking again
she asked how a house could catch
fire on such a nice
Sunday morning & he said
bacon
bacon? she asked
& he said the poor fry it &
keep its grease in cans
near their stoves
then fry more
leave the kitchen
to make love or
argue & a can catches fire
& flames climb
& they have no extinguishers
owing to their poverty
& that’s all
it takes
good thing
we have
extinguishers she said &
they walked
on
he asked
could they be
expired?
& she said
no
you’re sure he said
& she said I just checked
last month
an ambulance rushed past
he said if it
happens at night &
everything but the bedroom
is on fire
an extinguisher
won’t do much good
& jumping out that window
she conceded
would really
hurt
butterflies &
hunger pulled them ahead
he said remind me to put some
rope in my sock drawer
& she
nodded
strong rope
he said & she said thicker
than clothesline
the sirens
now almost memories
about halfway
home she asked where would we
tie the rope?
& he
considered their lack of bedposts
imagined that loose
doorknob proving too weak & said excellent
question
he tried to think
but it was such
a nice day
then all he could think
of was dragging a 2 x 4
longer than the width
of the bedroom window
from the crawlspace
& storing it in the bedroom
closet
he’d need to tie
the rope to it
quickly if there were a fire
but for now all he needed
was to hide it
in a corner
so it wouldn’t risk soiling
her clothes so she wouldn’t
throw it out later
yes he would
drag out a 2 x 4 as soon
as they got home
he could ask her right
now to remind him
but odds were she’d
hate a 2 x 4 & anyway she’d
stopped walking to pick
raspberries so he
joined her
not all of them
were completely ripe
the ones that were
detached easily
sometimes too soon
still they then had
enough to cover her
palm & they
headed home & stood
in the kitchen
over the crawlspace
eating cornflakes smothered
with raspberries
forgetting
the rope & the 2 x 4
