When the family returned to Indiana
from our Christmas visit to Texas,
we came home to a fire-ravaged house.
Broken windows with blistered frames
didn't prepare us for the blackened
hole inside reeking of burnt toast
or smoldering tires, an acrid haze
still settling weeks later around all
the scorched remains of my childhood.
first published in Pegasus
©2011 Bonnie Manion