Molly Moran
Molly Moran is a software engineer and poet based in Madison, Wisconsin. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Pigeon Pages, The Closed Eye Open, and elsewhere.
Prescribed Burn
Before airport traffic
Before W.ROBUSTA and Marquette Frye and Rodney King
Before the five of us encountered
a handsy stranger at a house party
in the Hills and
before we would go on to forget
about it and each other,
there were orange groves.
---
Before the rains came and
unburied the dead, who it must be said
numbered greater than expected,
and who,
though enemies in life, came together
now in this singular mad pursuit -
abandoning their peace
for the strong and beautiful concretions
and fluorescent supermarkets of the living -
they smelled of citrus.
---
Before, by the combined efforts
of strong offshore winds and several arsonists
working independently, the prescribed burn
took effect,
and long before every chicken-hearted boy
I ever loved would make his final appeal
to soften the structure
in case of fire:
to go the way of all precious things,
to be remembered dishonestly,
Before even cellphones
the streets were lousy with fruit.
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Image by Vladimir Fedotov from Unsplash
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