Burning at the Holidays

 I wrote this poem years ago, and found it hastily scribbled on a paper.  It seemed worth saving....

The Christmas Tree was burning! 

the hot wax of the candles fueling the flames,

minutes later covered in snowy white powder, 

our gifts glittering in white.

we scrambled to recover them,

like starving animals devouring a carcass.

Something burned every year,

the meatloaf on Thursdays because unattended

children do not understand time.

we burned through money, the last nickel

flung onto the highway somewhere between

Kentucky and Chicago.

I burned my hands every time Dad made me 

flip pancakes over leaping flames,

and our foreheads burned with fever

left to ourselves to heal

somehow.  

From the fires, we emerged 

somehow, the glitter of scarred-over

burns visible only to ourselves.