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.