The wood still believed itself to be alive.
Even after the cutting and dividing,
before thrown in with wood dead and wet
from rot. What it thought as the iron gate
closed and the flames licked its flesh
into smoke, what it thought as it discovered
it was not longer going to stretch or bend
when wind bears such promise. It whistled
and screamed, the steam of its fluids boiling,
boiling, boiling. The old house expanded and creaked,
heat asking the same old questions. Air,
still and crisp in the deep fall night, echoed back
the planks anger, fixed upon a nail or sinking place,
ungrowing, but still knowing, aging into stone, at last.
