LYING IN BED AWAY FROM HOME

Cardinals outside this window ask cheer what cheer

as they did from childhood's oaks, their voices

smeared

with Latin unguents from the Sisters of St. Joseph's

Mass next door till the fire station's braying riffs

and hoots uphill raised my father out of his chair

to pursue the immense arsons of his desire

my unemployed uncles up front in the bile-green

Packard

my teenage brothers asprawl in the back, and I,

anchored

at the window overlooking Carpenter Lane

as the hook-and-ladder flew past with all my male

kin

giving chase as if to extract some mysterious essence

from the sorrows of those burned out or down for

insurance

what did I know, sent early to bed, girlchild

parched with my own small longings, how it was to

thrill

to the luck of escape from the flames, to the whiff of

sex

the siren gave off that sang them back to the

redbirds' nest.