Mike Barlow
Side-show
A chip-pan after too much ale, they said later.
I woke to a popping like distant fireworks
or the sharpshooter stall at a funfair.
Orange-tinged smoke crossed the window.
Two blocks along the top flat blazed,
torched timbers a gaunt calligraphy in fire.
Beside me in the crowd my Polish neighbour
who never spoke and played Queen loud at 3.a.m.
squeezed my elbow to tell me screams
had come from up there earlier and once
when he was a boy, an empty warehouse in Gdansk
had burned for days before the duty watch retrieved
a charred body, a black and twisted crater
where the stomach burst. My uncle, I replied,
was a fireman in the blitz but never spoke about it;
guilt, my mother said, for spending the war at home.
A voice behind piped up that fire had a logic of its own
you couldn’t fathom however much you doused it.
A roofbeam collapsed, a confetti shower of embers.
The wind had a cold bite tragedy couldn’t numb.
Back home I lay awake, a shiver in my bones
though warm enough, while outside flashing lights
threw blue and red reflections on the wall,
like a travelling carnival too close to home.
Next day the building dripped and smouldered.
I looked in through a window and saw sky.
On the doorstep bunched tulips in a black puddle.
I waved to my neighbour but he looked the other way.
I woke to a popping like distant fireworks
or the sharpshooter stall at a funfair.
Orange-tinged smoke crossed the window.
Two blocks along the top flat blazed,
torched timbers a gaunt calligraphy in fire.
Beside me in the crowd my Polish neighbour
who never spoke and played Queen loud at 3.a.m.
squeezed my elbow to tell me screams
had come from up there earlier and once
when he was a boy, an empty warehouse in Gdansk
had burned for days before the duty watch retrieved
a charred body, a black and twisted crater
where the stomach burst. My uncle, I replied,
was a fireman in the blitz but never spoke about it;
guilt, my mother said, for spending the war at home.
A voice behind piped up that fire had a logic of its own
you couldn’t fathom however much you doused it.
A roofbeam collapsed, a confetti shower of embers.
The wind had a cold bite tragedy couldn’t numb.
Back home I lay awake, a shiver in my bones
though warm enough, while outside flashing lights
threw blue and red reflections on the wall,
like a travelling carnival too close to home.
Next day the building dripped and smouldered.
I looked in through a window and saw sky.
On the doorstep bunched tulips in a black puddle.
I waved to my neighbour but he looked the other way.
Page(s) 104
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