Inside the Lost Museum

This town smells like a campfire this morning.
It’s burning up, one building at a time.

Century-old storefronts explode like Roman candles,
white smoke lines townie lungs,

water flows uphill from spent hoses,
slickening the streets, throwing street lights
back at the sky.

Lost inside the quaint museum.  All totem poles,
daguerreotypes of industry men, and quilts
from someone’s bed.

“Maybe they take them back home at night.” How to spread
after everyone’s seen. How to still warm.

Coffee circle over one yellow square. Stain
on grape appliqué, auburn oblong like blood
or chocolate or mud from some tiny fist.

Tell me more about your father’s felled trees.
Pine and aspen, sequoia, juniper, hemlock.

Skagit River Tug and Schooner Bella.
One Log Road and Steam Skimmer, White Logger.

Saw one half open-mouthed smile,
saw the other half just below. Scream in the woods
like some rush to forgiveness. Creak in your arm,
pulling splinters.