Autumn Fires

Unexpected as burned stone,
what am I supposed
to do with this memory?
The sudden shuffle of ash,
flames clicking like needles,
grey-cold flags. You there
just now – I can’t be sure
– perhaps about to be?

5 a.m., still curved
like wax on a bottle.
I don’t hear the taxi,
then he’s gone. I’m standing
by the window now,
a boy walks through the rain.
In the kitchen a girl, not well,
strokes her paints on water.

After lunch, rain clings
to the gutters.
A moment and a log
falls sharply, knocking smoke
across the room.
Already I know the grass
is wet outside the window.
Who it is I’m waiting for.

Carolyn Oulton is a Professor of Victorian Literature at Canterbury Christ Church University. She teaches on the Creative and Professional Writing BA and is Project Co-Lead for https://kent-maps.online/. Her most recent poetry collection is Accidental Fruit (Worple). @writing_at_CCCU