After the Firestorm

                Longing, we say, because desire
                is full of endless distances.
                        —Robert Hass

She was away when the flames blossomed
across the hillsides, the inferno fueled
by the eucalyptus and the easterly winds.
But I did not kneel in gratitude on the barren slope
where my mother’s house had been.
          I knelt to sift through the soot and ash,
the heaps of debris.
The image of what I was seeking
so clear behind my eyelids:
the blood-red stone
set in its bezel of gold, a rosebud
on a twining vine—
the ring I’d begged for since I was a child
passed down from my great-aunt Bea
who had smuggled it out of Russia.
          How long had I imagined
my mother was only waiting
for the right moment
to hand me the box,
to watch as I sprung open the lid?
          Yet now, as of their own volition
my fingers stopped raking the dust.
Better to take the blackened spoon,
the half-melted knife.
Tarnished, ruined, my mother’s table utensils
unsuited to the task of lifting food
to the lips, reminders
that what was served up as love
failed to feed any part of my heart’s deep appetite.
          The sun inched closer to the horizon
while I studied the sparrows that were circling
and reversing overhead. I was determined to know
why they wove intricate patterns in the air,
the shadow-glyphs thrown
down around me. Was their manic flight
brought on by the vanished trees
and nests, or by what autumn itself foretells?
          After the last bird swerved and disappeared
into the dusk, the sky was strangely still.
I stayed on unmoved by the absence
of ceiling and walls, scanning
the charred dirt
for signs of what might be stirring
under the surface: the green shoots of a seedling,
a beetle’s six diminutive legs, each bending
at the knee.

*

Laura Ann Reed is a Contributing Editor with The Montréal Review. She holds master’s degrees in clinical psychology as well as in the performing arts. Her poems have appeared in seven anthologies, including Poetry of Presence II, as well as in numerous journals. Her most recent work is forthcoming in ONE ART, Illuminations, The Ekphrastic Review, SWWIM, and Main Street Rag. Her new chapbook, Homage to Kafka, was published by The Poetry Box (July 2025). https://lauraannreed.net/