Burns
Sara Ries Dziekonski
Image by Vlad Bagacian
Backyard fires burn through the pandemic,
safety of a smoke wall between us.
You’re smiling, I can tell
through your mask.
*
For the “I touch” line of the “I Am” poem
my elementary school student wrote:
I touch 2020 and it burns.
*
Baby’s first fever:
A wildfire claimed
the whole town within us,
our bones heavy
with the coals of his body.
We feared we’d never find our way
back, rushed to get COVID tested.
When the fever broke, the town
rained wildflowers.
*
Grandma was a writer.
Before I was born,
the grandpa I never knew
tossed all her poems
and stories
into the fire.
Her words burned,
but the ink
is the pupil of an eye,
the cloak of the crow,
and it hangs
like Spanish moss
from ancient oak trees.
*
New day:
we wake,
make coffee,
ashes of sleep
smeared on our cheeks.
Our bodies,
boats pointed
toward the open sea.
Sara Ries Dziekonski
Sara Ries Dziekonski (Sara Ries), a Buffalo native, holds an MFA in poetry from Chatham University. Her first book, Come In, We're Open, which she wrote about growing up in her parents’ diner, won the 2009 Stevens Poetry Manuscript Competition. Her chapbooks include Snow Angels on the Living Room Floor (Finishing Line Press 2018) and Marrying Maracuyá (Main Street Rag 2021), which won the Cathy Smith Bowers Chapbook Competition. She teaches creative writing for Keep St. Pete Lit and is the co-founder of Poetry Midwives Editing Services. Learn more at sararies.com.