Another ordinary day
A damsel wakes with father fear
Reluctantly pulls blanket back
As thoughts of resting disappear
From messages left unreturned
A growing feeling to embark
So, to his door set off to seek
Her unresponsive patriarch
Our damsel finds the bolted door
On floating breeze, smoke scent conveyed
The clock ticked quicker, locked without
Prompt call for hasty rescue aid
Blazed into action in a flash
—our scorching young protagonist
His searing skills foundation-forged
To save an injured arsonist
Our hero spots a bold ingress
An aperture at altitude
And meanwhile spies a driver’s card
—appearing strangely barbecued
Attention-torch on task-at-hand
On bended knee to deftly bring
—our damsel up, with strapping arm
To reach the lofty opening
Our star-struck damsel, hero-held
Enchanted by his smouldering gaze
Wonders on what might have been
If meet-cute happened other-ways
Then slipping lithely window-wise
She drops inside the residence
Let hero in, then victim search
While mental-logging evidence
Sticky hi-***** rest in pairs
—their bottles languish laterally
Permeating smoky trace
Each clue arranged unnaturally
Recalls the messes passed outside
The slumber-tilted char-filled grate
Suggests a rather vigoured dance
With lumbering unsteady mate
And there our wounded, mattress-bound
Though coverlet obscures him still
His body marred in major part
From falling on his lighted grill
That solo night with drinks for two
—set grill for dreamy warmth, and then
Was flame-kissed in his doomed attempt
To bring his lost love back again
The sloshing, dulling, drink-fired trance
All woozy, stumbly, bonfire-played
He scrambled indoors, mattress-jelled
No manner for alerting aid
The damsel-daughter rescue-wrapped
Her father truly bottle-broke
As panic builds, all hero dreams
Well vanished in a puff of smoke
First thoughts occur, ‘If only aid
—had come before to stay this fate’
The thought reply, ‘But even so,
before this fire, was still too late’
Stuck helpless in her helping role
As supine father gurney-glides
Recalls the times and times before
The medically supported rides
The bottle holds a fire-fuel
That firefighters can’t suppress
A complex, clawing, crawling pain
That leaks into a shared distress
Constant, judgeless, shame-free love
The only hope to smother flames
A blanket of persistent souls
To search for joy when none remains
Without these tools for fire fight
The flames repeated encore flare
So, we are left ‘if only’ bound
Our loved ones to another round
That crackling roar the only sound
All fire-kissed and blanket bare
©2024
