It wasn’t real until mom and I were in your apartment

and seeing for the first time the soot wilted against

the kitchen walls, smeared across the microwave and

stove, while that horrible smoky smell sank into every

fiber of our clothes, so much that we washed them

the minute we got home, after we’d put our armfuls

of you in a heap on the table, drawings, your laptop,

Buddhas, one with its head broken off, something that

would’ve made me think of you, even if it wasn’t lying

in the living room with the dishes you threw, with

the kicked-in shelf, the sharp gems of your broken

window dotting the carpet. And when I showed dad

the Buddha, its cropped, shiny-black neck like a dark

tear in my hands, he took a sharp inhale before saying

Jessamyn, your hair smells like fire.