Charlotte Mazurek
Flames bloomed.
Heat petals
pressed to brick,
their silk stains
smoke black
on cinderblock.
Memories in rings,
the pop of sap,
bark black as
basalt. Crumbling.
The red flower
withered long ago.
Now sapling roots
make love to ash,
ancestral remains.
A shoot rises from
the ancient mortar.
Its new leaves
above the hearth
bloom green.