Extinct Poem by Martha Zweig

Mother & father I once had had a child once:
she escaped in the fire. They set water
boiling momentarily, tumultuous
rolling boil, beware the pot
watched them, thought everything over,
thought harder, mind, mind.
So the mother picked up &
twiddled the phone, taught it to chat, while the father
steamed open his shaving mirror, & all of a sudden neither
one ever got back
to the pot, the kettle, the hot bottom of things,
& the child's
room ruffled up over the furious
kitchen stove & burned her off like a rocket crisp.
Here's how the damp black wood out back there
drudges to this day: every night it moonshines for the little girl.
Cool coals shimmer, snuff; the joists
slip & dimensions lapse to dismantle
according to the crows' step-
by-step procedure: yawk,
what ceiling? Dew,
brass buckle
& berry exchange.

Goodbye, then, foolish family! Who
will I love next?
Until we got so interrupted, I never
suspected anyone.