Austin Robert Smith

The silver sticker on the lower-right pane
Of the north-facing window of my childhood bedroom
Was to let the firefighters know that
There was a child up there

It was also what made fire possible
Depicting as it did a firefighter
Carrying an unconscious boy
Who looked like me in his arms

Had it not been for that sticker
I would never have lain awake
Imagining the tongues of flames
Flickering through the jambs

Crawling on hands and knees
Under the firmament of smoke
The ladder leaned against the sill
The axe shattering the glass

And me being carried
Down to earth rung by rung
To be told the hard truth and then
Sent to live with an aunt and uncle

The sticker that may have saved me
Suggested tragedy which is why
Some nights unable to sleep
I picked at it with my nail

But it could be peeled off
As easily as the moon can be
Peeled off the surface of a pond
Which is to say not easily at all

There are no stickers on the windows
Of the room in which I sleep now
No one knows anyone is here
And no child sleeps in that room

That I slept in as a boy
Though the sticker insists
One still sweetly does
As it waits for the axe to shatter it