My Sister

My sister escaped the firewall
    that billowed out from the downtown;
she escaped the first, the worst, ashfall
    that made the neighborhood look lunar.

When we began to come out
    the tracks of her big rubber boots were always first
to show the safe way to food or water.

In the evening at the safeplace she would be the one
    to pick up a crying child and quiet it
or sing to pass the storm time.

Now that I am dying
    she will be the last person
and I think it bothers her to be alone.

—teenage boy
  Upper Mississippi Valley
  North America