Books that survived the fire (because they were somewhere else)

• T. S. Eliot's Four Quartets, often with me, this copy a gift from Sarai
• Scanning the Century poetry anthology, mostly unthumbed
• Rae Armantrout's Next Life, hardbound, awkward to hold for reading
• A copy of Fowler's Modern English Usage, from a previous life
• Zukofsy's A, which I still plan to get to
• Bill Berkson's Lush Life
• Mel Freilicher's The Unmaking of Americans: 7 Lives, which Dennis replaced for me
• Paul Dresman's The Silver Dazzle of the Sun, which was in my car's trunk
• Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking, somewhat appropriate
• 5 copies of Small Rain
  

Damage

I keep thinking of old songs, “Season of the Witch,” and “Our House” with the verb tense changed to past. And I keep thinking of the thing people say, “At least no one died.” Not a consolation, really. “At least” doesn’t work in this situation. People die; houses aren’t supposed to; and when it’s your house, with your life in it, the thing you’ve created as the externalization of yourselves, there’s nothing to compare it to.