Mama, the house is burning.
‘hush child, this house is fire proof.’
As her nightgown smokes and curls
Like an offering
Like a whispered prayer
‘this house has stood for thousands of years.’
Mama, the house is burning.
‘this house will stand for a thousand more.’

This house burns down once a season.
It is rebuilt just in time for the next fire.
Every time.

Mama, the house is burning.
Mama, the house is burning.
All of my words just crumble
like the beams.
Snapping like broken backs
kneeling under the pressure.
Dropping to the floor.
Like spent casings.
Words slip past like smoke,
silent like flames
racing across the floor.

This house burns once a season,
every time it is rebuilt
it is missing something
that made it what it was.
Made it what we are.
What we were.
What we hope to be.

Mama, the house is burning.
‘No, child. This house cannot burn.’
Mama, the house is burning.
All of my tears
will never be enough to quench the fire.
Mama, the house is burning.

Hunter Hall

Hunter Hall’s a ferocious poet seen late last century lurking black-hooded about the rainy streets of Seattle. Reading Deleuze&Guattari while slinging brutal mochas, channeling serpents and raw riot through her spoken-word performances, she now lurks somewhere in the Salish Sea, plotting revolution while baking for her children.

Hunter Hall has a poem in A Beautiful Resistance: The Fire is Here. Click here to order.