<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Kennedy Drive<\/strong><\/h4>\n

 <\/p>\n

The night of the warehouse fire, we all<\/p>\n

stayed up watching an orange sky twist<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

flame and shadow, flinching with each<\/p>\n

boom as oil drums succumbed.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Maybe we should leave,<\/em> my mother said.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

My father\u2014glowing bright, then dim\u2014<\/p>\n

stared out the window. Listen, you can<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

hear each barrel roll and blow.<\/em> The way<\/p>\n

he talked me through a thunderstorm,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

one thousand one, one thousand two\u2014<\/em><\/p>\n

Five seconds, a mile between the flash<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

and its slower rumble. Here the gap was<\/p>\n

only Kennedy Drive, one street between<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

our family and the flames\u2014a band of<\/p>\n

silence that held the night and the noise<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

at what seemed like a safe distance.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

My Mother Holds Her Great-Granddaughter<\/strong><\/h4>\n

 <\/p>\n

In rows of ruffles with a pink medallion pinned<\/p>\n

above the hemline, our new Amelia has been placed<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

across my mother\u2019s lap. First one yawns<\/p>\n

and then the other. Both have trouble keeping<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

focus. My mother nods beneath nine weary<\/p>\n

decades, waiting to be guided toward her nap.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Amelia stretches and resumes her newborn sleep.<\/p>\n

All the limbs are delicate\u2014in so precarious<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

a balance that we gasp when one leg shifts<\/p>\n

against another and the baby starts to cry.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But it\u2019s only slight, this minor tumble into frailty<\/p>\n

and resemblance.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

How\u2019s it going,<\/em> my brother asks me later.<\/p>\n

Like propping up dust,<\/em> I say.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I once saw my mother kill a snake<\/p>\n

that dared to trespass in her garden.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

She never flinched, just thrust the shovel<\/p>\n

downward to separate the head from all<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

the life that thrashed behind it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Kennedy Drive   The night of the warehouse fire, we all stayed up watching an orange sky twist   flame and shadow, flinching with each boom as oil drums succumbed.   Maybe we should leave, my mother said.   My father\u2014glowing bright, then dim\u2014 stared out the window. Listen, you can   hear […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3857","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3857","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3857"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3857\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3858,"href":"http:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3857\/revisions\/3858"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}