ICY STEPS                                                    Hawaii Pacific Review , 2002

                            I

Fear’s stiletto shot in the air, one siren following another,

causing our malamute to throw back her smoky head,

dig up her most brazen howl.

Within minutes smoke raced to our place,

curled at the window-casings. When the sultry

dark notched itself in the air,

Skedaddle Mountain and Thompson Peak disappearing,

we affirmed something hot-wired town.

                            II

It is difficult to catch just where a thing starts,

the eye expert at nailing what’s familiar in place.

What shocks us is the sheer abundance of disappearing things:

the World Trade Towers , faces love made.

                            III

The house, a historical site, burned to the ground,

tree flames hop-scotching down the road.

For months the new owners scraped, renovated,

transformed the usual into the exceptional.

IV

I want for us a basket of songbirds

to carry up the icy steps of unknowns.

Any moment something could leap out of place,

neither of us clear on what we saw

in the simultaneous fits of dust and debris.