Shirts rose on a neighbor’s laundry line,
One or two attempting to fly,
As three fire engines sped by
To save a church going up in flames.
People walking back from the pyre
With their Sunday clothes in tatters
Looked like a troupe of scarecrows
The bank had ousted from their farm.
As for the firebug, we were of two minds:
Some kid trying out a new drug,
Or a drunk ex-soldier angry at God
And Country for making him a cripple.
—Charles Simic
Charles Simic, a former Poet Laureate of the United States, is the author most recently of The Lunatic (poetry) and The Life of Images (prose).
