This is a suburb; not the sort of place
where ruins are the norm. But there it was,
behind the thickets in the vacant lot:
a gate. And just behind the gate, a strip
of cinders—the ghost of what had been a wall.

The man, the dog, and I were mystified—
had there once been a cottage here, then
a fire? How long ago, and of what melodrama
was this scorched rectangle the final scene?
We scrabbled in our mental underbrush

and came up with a fragile heroine
trapped in a hopeless, scandalous
affair. Their love was incandescent—but 
doomed. After they parted,
her husband burned their love-nest to the ground.

That night, I dreamed of slender yellow fingers
writhing from the tops of trees, and curls
of silver smoke gauzing the hedges. Walls
on four sides reddened, heaved and buckled
while a great wind howled across the bed.

Then quietly, the lavender of morning
spilled over me; I touched the sleeping man
beside me, and the cool sheet on my skin
was light, serene—utterly unlike the raw,
tumultuous world of wild longing, of flame.