Stunt Road fire

Chaparral explodes like a sun vanishing
into a cold black hole. Exhilarating. Spooky.
Day turns eerie & snaps. Sycamores, oaks burst
into orange, spark into charcoal. Patty’s dad said,
I’d rather die than abandon my home to this blaze.


The fire jumps Stunt Road, the last ridge
between Malibu and the Old
Canyon Road. We’re ordered to leave.
Grab what we can. And get out. Now.

Mom leaves to pick up dad
from work at Joe Creek’s, leaves
me with my brothers, leaves me
to “grab the important stuff.”

How do you know what’s important?
We grab dirty laundry because
its easy to carry, dad’s scuba tanks,
mom’s canvases … snacks. From the sound

of her shriek, she meant something
different by “important stuff.”
We huddle at my grandpa’s house
where he tells us long, slow stories

of building New York skyscrapers
during the nineteen-thirties. How,
as an Indian, he walked steel
caked with ice. Because Indians

have good balance, even on ice.
How he broke legs, fingers
as the “treasurer” for the LGU.
Drinks scotch neat to smooth our stay.


Charcoal & ash & orange fire retardant
smolder the canyon rim. Oaks, sycamores lay
dead & dying. Some spark and live. All things smell
like burnt. And eerie becomes same old, same old.
People died. Houses burned. But not Patty’s dad’s.