A Memory Turned to Soot

I’ll always recall
that fatefull night
your sleek silver phone, buzzing
Your voice was sharp, worried, rushed
A misfit sound in the untouched night
I feigned sleep
but worry seeped out my mind
and into my pillow,
it felt wrong to be lying down when something
was so obviously wrong in the silence
Slippers beneath soft-satin pajamas crept down the ominous hall
walls and floors absent
in the pitch blackness
Piece of silver held to ear, muttering
I convince myself that I’d be ready for whatever news loomed ahead--but I could never have been prepared for what I was to face
You,
abandoning your vacation with us a week early;
hearing that the exact house I’d grown in—slept, ate, played in—
was engulfed in hues of red
and orange rage, miles away;
or that Grandpa had suffered large, angry bruises from shoving our one-ton pride-and-joy
out of the roaring garage
But I’m so thankful that the most important memory of that house was left unscathed—
You