Arsonist’s Ode
You who sleep in ragweed and attic, draw your red tongue over asphalt,eucalyptus, aloe, snowmelt. You who struck the matchbelow the mattress, illuminatedthe imagination of soldier and child,warped the faces of dolls, whom I saw devour a car whole on the interstate.Destroyer of villages, the Cuyahoga, magnificent golden temples of Budapest—wake! Every bent stalk of …