Birch Tree by Melissa Perri Smith

There’s a fire burning in our backyard, fueled

by kerosene, dried leaves, & bark from the

birch tree, a tree I tried to climb when I was

too young to realize I should go for distance

& not height to escape the flames.

Don’t use gasoline to fan the fire, my dad said,

but I spat on the words he put on a page, my lips

spewing petrol until our house was ablaze, the

birch tree standing solemn in our front yard,

waiting for the chance to be consumed.

There aren’t birch trees here, or at least I’ve

never seen one. The tree I remember is split

like a wishbone, & I used to sit in the middle

of it, back hooked with feet pushing, to see if

I could make it break.

There aren’t birch trees here, or at least I’ve

never seen one. The sidewalk is spotted like

its skin, though, in peeling blacks and grays,

& every day I walk along the cracks of it to

see if it’ll burst into flames.

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Melissa Perri Smith is a writer and editor in the Washington, D.C. area. She has poems featured in Hapa Mag, io Literary Journal, Sky Island Journal, and Channel Magazine.