Ceremony
- Ceremony
My younger brother finishesfire academy on top of the roofwith a hatchet and the building
on fire. The year in high schoolhe could finally bench two-fifty,our mother breathed
since he could carry her to safetyor lift her back to the sanitarium ifshe cracked another bone.
He alters time & memorynow his bravery surpassesmine, the older sister
who believes he can finally save usas if he was born on a burning roof—and wasn’t our home always burning? [End Page 11]
Jennifer Givhan was a PEN Emerging Voices Fellow, the DASH 2013 Poetry Prize winner, a St. Lawrence Book Award finalist, and a Vernice Quebodeaux Pathways finalist. An MFA candidate at Warren Wilson College, Givhan’s work has appeared in Best New Poets 2013, Prairie Schooner, Indiana Review, Rattle, and The Los Angeles Review.
