Spring In The Burned House

 

My cousins and I hunt for Easter eggs
in the black ash and scattered bricks

that did not die.
 

The eggs are bright, too blue and green
for this twisted wire mess,
heaps of grey, light as powder.
 

We laugh and dig for coins.
I hide a melted spoon in my basket,
I know it’s better than cracked eggs.
 

The stairwell we slid down
with quilts and blankets, bump, bump
is a pile of black cold, is Mt. Everest

with stones and trees.
Climbing in our Sunday clothes,
we circle the foundation that seems too small
 

for a two story house,
its cedar siding curled,
its wooden roof floating somewhere

 

in South America or Canada.
Monarchs land on our shoulders.
We pinch their wings,

wipe the yellow from our fingers.