the Greenway kids are off

up the hill to check out the house on fire

                 – wild running things, sweaty uniforms –

heading to the slender seam of black smoke
I couldn’t smell it

but I knew up close it would be all the things

                 – melted plastic paint

                 family portraits notes on the fridge

                 shoes lined up at the door

                 gum boots that didn’t fit anyone anymore

                 broken TV on the porch the collection

                 of old calendars (who could throw away the dates

                 reminders appointments lessons visits meal plans) –

close up it would smell of all things

that shouldn’t be on fire
we didn’t join them, the shoeless brumby children,

though I really wanted to

                 – because who doesn’t want to see things burn –

my kids, one is twisting the swing around

and around higher until it exhales

free and twirling

the other is on hands and knees picking through the grass for

four lucky leaves
I call triple zero

in case nobody has thought to

because you know it is safer

to have a heart attack in front of one person

than in a crowd
this is a real life emergency, even if it doesn’t feel

like anything because this is someone else’s fire
the operator’s voice is level

like a filing system ordered with dusty tabs

opened and closed with a key
she tells me the units are dispatched

and as she says it I hear

the siren and see

the Greenway kids

kicking up the dust

heading home
later but not much

the block sells for millions

a new house appears

Street View shows both versions

before and after

                 – not the inbetween –

a glitchy time slip
in Summer we walk up the hill after school

                 – shade to shade –

and I wonder about the houses

with all the stuff inside

on shelves

in baskets

all the things that can, so easily

turn to a dark thread

climbing in the sky