Fire Followers
There are seeds that begin to unclose themselves only
at the touch of smoke particles in soil, some
chemical vivification: Lazarus
come forth,
the burning time is done.
A trail of fume tendriling downward
alerts them,
molecule char
in leaky earth.
Now is their time to begin.
*
Know, then, that the first shoots will rise
to monstrous wreckage:
ashen shadows: great former things
bent down in abominable ruin.
The clouds themselves will be raked with scar,
and all that was, the color of dirge.
Through this, the seed
reaches slowly.
William Orem’s first story collection, Zombi, You My Love, won the GLCA New Writers Award. His second, Across the River, won the Texas Review Novella Prize. Read more.