We Didn't Start the Fire

We Didn't Start the Fire

Will Schutt

Two doors down lived a descendant of de Sade. 

            He rode a vintage（古老的，最佳的） Trek in a gingham（条纹棉布） shirt. 

 A blue Hamsa strung around his neck 

            waved when he waved. The name meant 

 nearly nil to us, cluelessly humming the catalog 

            of history in "We Didn't Start the Fire"—

Harry Truman, Ho Chi Minh, Rockefeller, Roy Cohn. 

            Hunting arrowheads, we made off with a haul 

 of tangled wires, nickeled tubs. Some inheritance. 

            Children of thalidomide, hypodermics（皮下注射） on the shore. 

 Between the cemetery and schoolhouse 

            rows of thuja formed a buffer. Most headstones 

 looked as if an animal had rubbed his back 

            up and down against them. Most hurricanes 

 amounted to little more than steady drizzle. 

            Townies spray-painted the bridge: "Sayonara, 

 Bob" or "Safe travels, Sucker." At sunset 

            summer people walked their drinks down 

 to the beach—the happy human chain— 

            each tethered to one spot, each for now alive.