For the House that Burned Down

A poem by Alicia Cook

She felt you yawn under her feet,

ran her fingers across your beams,

tracing your wooden veins.

She swears there was a pulse.

She tells me you both grew up together.

Laughter once flowed here—

so did tears, so did rage, so did love.

So did spilled juice, so did swaying bodies,

so did sunlight.

You mopped it all up

like flesh absorbs nutrients;

a silent participant

in every moment that mattered.

She said your inanimate body

sprouted a soul, kept her secrets.

The diagnosis was immediately grim.

She didn’t—couldn’t say goodbye,

barely muttered a “See you later,”

and sobbed in the car so you wouldn’t see.

She left with the essentials—

baby teeth, the red photo album,

the heirloom ceramic Christmas tree.

She left with some nonessentials—

Passport, contact lenses,

bookbag of electronics.

You lived in your own way

then died a tragic cliché.

The flames were merciless,

cold-blooded killers.

You didn’t stand a chance,

though she prayed for rain.

A postmortem showed

it was an agonizing death.

There was no proper send off.

There was nothing left to bury.

A grave without a marker,

a death without a eulogy.

And she couldn’t help but think of you

as she does her dead mother;

gone, and yet here—

haunting the space where you once stood.

And, so, she cried and she grieved

for her dearly departed friend

who deserved better.