{"id":259,"date":"2009-05-06T16:10:59","date_gmt":"2009-05-06T16:10:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.proteanme.com\/?p=259"},"modified":"2009-05-06T16:13:17","modified_gmt":"2009-05-06T16:13:17","slug":"in-other-words","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.proteanme.com\/?p=259","title":{"rendered":"in other words"},"content":{"rendered":"

Landscape with Arson<\/strong><\/span>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

Have you ever watched a cigarette released from a driver’s fingers
\nswim through the night air and disintegrate in tiny embers?
\nInvisible by day, fire’s little shards, its quiet dissemination.<\/span><\/p>\n

That’s how, one hot afternoon, no one noticed when
\nsomething desperate made the boy devise the strategy
\nto siphon gas from the motorcycle with a discarded straw,<\/p>\n

spitting mouthfuls into a fast food cup until there was enough
\nto set the apartment complex on fire.
\nIt happened in a neighborhood at the edge of town<\/p>\n

where the wind sifted a constant precipitation of dust
\nlike desiccated snow and the newly-poured streets
\nlooked like frosting spread across the desert field.<\/p>\n

Ducks had just found the man-made pond.
\nAt dusk, they waddled ashore
\nto explore the construction site like the boy.<\/p>\n

He started with the door. Stood mesmerized
\nas the fire took on new colors. He fed it litter
\ncollected from the field. It hissed and turned green,<\/p>\n

it splintered pink, it bloomed aureoles of blue.
\nBut there was hardly time to admire it before
\nremorse overtook him and he fled.<\/p>\n

Before the howl of sirens. He was
\ngone before\u2014he started with the door\u2014whatever
\nhe wanted to let out.<\/p>\n

Something can stop being true in the time it takes
\na cigarette to burn to its filter. It was your crime
\nbut it’s me who goes back to the scene. Now it’s only me<\/p>\n

who wants to burn something for you, but there’s nothing left\u2014how
\ndo you set fire to the past? Only an impulse to shake free\u2014like cellophane
\npeeled from a pack\u2014something that clings.<\/p>\n

Sometimes I conjure a fire for you in my mind,
\nthe gnats swarming furiously above the water, up and down,
\ncan you see it? How they mimic flame, hovering<\/p>\n

at the pond’s edge. Lately I find myself there all the time.<\/p>\n

Jennifer Grotz<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Landscape with Arson Have you ever watched a cigarette released from a driver’s fingers swim through the night air and disintegrate in tiny embers? Invisible by day, fire’s little shards, its quiet dissemination. That’s how, one hot afternoon, no one noticed when something desperate made the boy devise the strategy to siphon gas from the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-259","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reading"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.proteanme.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.proteanme.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.proteanme.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.proteanme.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.proteanme.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=259"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.proteanme.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.proteanme.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.proteanme.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.proteanme.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}