Beside the copper bell and hammer,
a tea-brown gas mask stares out, left eye
cracked. A tangle of rope, blackened
and frayed, lies pressed under glass
like a lock of hair. What doesn't burn
becomes relic, talisman against.
On a scroll, huge petals of fire curl
from a wooden house. Firemen run
bare-legged toward it, tattooed
with the motifs of invulnerability:
twisting carp, samurai, a red octopus
winding around the back and arms.
Their bodies glow on the paper
like the painted lanterns they carry
running, themselves lit.
Jennifer Fumiko Cahill’s poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Prairie Schooner and The Southern Review. She lives in Tokyo, Japan
