By Claudia Putnam

This is the beginning. The waiting

is the hardest part. How nice to one another

were Londoners, really, during the Blitz?

In 2020, socially distanced,

we sling insults, virtually, for asking—

Is my house

still there? Am I

under evacuation—yet? Be quiet, cry

the social media ushers, such questions

agitate our anxiety. Support

our firefighters! They

will tell you when they can. But

is my house—

This fire moving 6000 acres per hour.

Outside Boulder, neighbors spotting

their home in flames, front page. Their wait

for news over.

My brother-in-law sprinting

from Paradise, gasping dog beside him. Road

too jammed for his packed car—

My dear wife, couldn’t

save you years prior,

cancer laid in before

I knew, though you

knew and wouldn’t

say. Nor could I save

your photographs, recipes,

hair clippings from beloved

pets, or anything else you

loved. I saved my own

skin, as I knew you’d

have wanted. I miss you.

from this old folks’

home where I’ve been

relocated, and where

memory, too, blisters.

His daughter miles away,

her own home destroyed. Later

she found the pony shivering in a

neighbor’s pool. The cats never

again seen.

Claudia Putnam is a craniosacral therapist in western Colorado. She has been evacuated or on standby due to wildfire several times. Her debut collection, The Land of Stone and River, won the Moon City Press poetry prize and came out in March 2022. A personal essay, Double Negative, won the Split/Lip Press chapbook prize and also came out in March. Among other residencies, she received the Bennett Fellowship from Phillips Exeter Academy.