out from my apartment backporch, right across the way, <br />separated by a sand volleyball court, <br />is that other building; <br />the one that caught on fire at 5: 30am on the very <br />morning W was given the Presidency, <br />like a present from daddy. <br />and the four of us living in bldg8 aptF, <br />were waked by a wailing alarum to <br />a sunrise in the west. <br />as the girls ran inside for their cameras, Beau and I <br />watched shirtless from our balcony <br />less than 100 yards away, <br />smoking cigarettes, <br />soaking in the most beautiful thing either of us had ever seen. <br />snaketongued flames rose 50feet into the morning <br />and the smoke seemingly floated up <br />to Jupiter. <br />we got a good 45minutes <br />before the fire engines came with their cambers of extirpation. <br />phone calls from relatives, who were watching presidential <br />updates and were interrupted by local news flashes <br />of a fire at our small college complex, made sure we were OK. <br />in the news, the pictures never did the fire justice, <br />(they prefer bodybags to bulletholes) <br />they only showed the building decapitatedly roofless, after the fact, <br />after the guillotine had fallen. <br />(our pictures were much better) and <br />down in the volleyball sand, about 100 kids were watching, <br />50 of whom would need a new place to live. <br />and, come 8: 30, the smoke had gone <br />the hollowed building creaked, but still stood. <br />and in the following several months, we watched, from our backporch, <br />the slow de- then re-construction of the skeleton. <br />and I knew that morning, on my backporch, I was about to watch <br />the same process with my country.<br /><br />Jackson Riley<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/november-3-2004/
