This is called "To A Woman Whose House Burned Down."
And a lot of time passes in the poem.
At first, I imagine the woman as a little girl,
things in her life that led up to where she
was when her house burned down.
And then there's a transition, which hopefully you
will be able to catch.
"To A Woman Whose House Burned Down."
Somewhere, the sun rose and people saw it.
Children in other places peered from the covers at dawn,
and a soft orange light filled the threatening corners
of their dreams.
But you woke to some blurred voice of water or a man
speaking to stone.
You did what you were told, you put on your coat,
you smoked your fingers all the way up Prospect Avenue,
until the red bricks of school gathered out of the fog,
the fence gates closed, and you put your little hand
on your flat chest and repeated the meaningless words.
I pledge allegiance to the fear of emptiness,
and to the potential for sorrow of my unformed breast,
and to the Republic of my loneliness, one small nation
of warring desires, under a flag of stars and blood
and not enough money.
And so on and so on.
I don't know how it was, but in no time
you were home, having dinner with your husband,
and the kids in the house turning to moss that he
left you when he left.
Then, it was bad wiring they said, and you were standing
a little ways back in the woods, almost naked,
with the flames reflected in your still eyes,
long before the sun rose and people saw it.