American Flamingo

As Sparks Fly Upward

50 As Sparks Fly Upward We built underground grottos, trenches and passageways among cool rooms of dirt. We placed boards, plywood and papers over the trenches and rooms and covered them with dirt, camouflaging our work with trash and broken glass to make it unattractive to walk on our roofs. We left openings for ladders, openings for light. We spoke in codes to set ourselves apart. We studied crumbling walls, the architecture of trees, theologies of grass. We considered our bodies. We constructed many-leveled fortresses among the leaves, secreted away ammo and forbidden texts. I am trying to remember just what went on in those rooms where we groped toward knowledge of good and evil and tried out roles of hero, servant, thief. We built up and tore down, plotted and brooded, found power and grace. And once in the variegated light of a dream warehouse we made of packing crates stolen from orchards and vineyards with labels of sunny peaches, clusters of blue-black grapes, sharp-eyed swallows winging over row crops, so many bright pictures we had turned inward to catch the light from between the slats, frescoes in a crate cathedral, we watched a girl take off her clothes and throw them down the way an angel might cast off shame. As sparks flew upward, our cathedral burned with trouble like a home. ...