From Burning Sage: Poems from the Lytton fire (Caitlin Press, 2023)

Two

Meghan Fandrich

The second time
I visited my ruins
was in the spring

nine months after the fire

the dangerous walls
still standing

the loose bricks
more
                      settled

the ash and debris
the same

a friend climbed into the basement
             pit of ashes
with a hand rake

sifted for hours

uncovering relics
of my past

broken sculpture
fractured china
rusted jewellery
embedded in pieces of shattered glass

I sat at the top
watched what she pulled out
feeling nothing
except a dull curiosity

how a burned doorknob looks like a vase
or knitting needles crumble with touch
or only the ugliest dishes survive

feeling dull curiosity
but no attachment
to this excavation
of life

she brought up jars
herb-infused salts
products I made in the kitchen
a few days before the fire

the glass still intact
just scorched

she set them gently
on the sidewalk
beside me

and one by one

I smashed them