Somersville Mill Fire

                                                               

A splay of heat-warped girders,

a tumble of brick. The mill burned

so abruptly firefighters arrived

as it tipped into the river

to fry a few dozen fish.

The whole village turned out

to bask in the glare. The ghost

of my Uncle Chet must have been there.

For decades he mended looms,

scuttling between angry machines

with tool kit and powerful thirst.

Drinking repeatedly killed him,

but he rose from his grave, returned

to work, again and again

until the mill closed forever.

Behind the brick complex a slew

of tenements where the sister

of a kid I knew in high school

took on all the boys, including

her brother. Her flesh lay warm

in summer light, warm as the wreck

of the mill as firefighters rolled

their hoses. The river churns

over a dam and through a trough

half-choked with debris. The mill pond

mirrors a featureless sky.

Fishing that still water bored me,

but my father liked the silence

and poise of watching his bobber

red and white on green-gray slick.

He must have wondered why Chet,

younger sibling, drank so deeply    

that he drowned his memory

of island war, a water-cooled

machine gun heavy on his shoulder.

I kick a few bricks and turn my back

on the wreck of the mill. No use

clearing the rubble for parking lots—

no reason to park here, nothing

to the village but a few houses,

a brown brick school, wooden church.

The pond shivers. Early spring

and the smell of fire two years ago

still brisk and bitter on the tongue.