My head burns.

And sometimes,
my eyes water too,
from the smoke I guess.
I feel like a phoenix.

After it happened,
the community enclosed
us like a blanket, and
the kids at school forgave us
for wearing the same clothes.

We moved between hotels,
motels, months and months,
none of them houses, none

of them home. My mum

did my dad’s tie
each morning

in the room where we all
shared beds, siblings
like sardines, top to tail.
When we couldn’t sleep,

we counted up the things
of ours that just didn’t
exist anymore. I remembered

each and every present,
Christmas and birthday;
all the furniture, all
the photographs.

I carry the ashes
of those things with me.
Today, Wednesday, I
wear them in a cross
on my forehead.