We’ve gone from ten back-yard piles to six, 

now four, soon none. Making room 

for tree swings, cordwood, bicycle racks, gardens— 

My sister sweats, back and forth from the piles 

to the bonfire in new shock-red work gloves,

pitches the boards one by one into the flames. 

I rush out when I see smoke over the sheds. 

But we’ve been through this already, I’ve agreed to this. 

My brother busies himself elsewhere, 

can’t witness the wasted work, the cost, 

like rotten seed packs, 

never planted, never bloomed. 

Our father milled these boards on a diesel-run sawmill 

behind the orchard woods the year he and my mother split. 

He slept in a cobbled cabin set on blocks— 

water in jugs, awkward visits, disintegration. 

Twenty years and the lumber 

has gone to the skunks, chipmunks

and beetles. A house unbuilt, 

a raft never launched into the back pond. 

Boards with the ridged etchings of the blade

so I will remember that he made them—

pushed the blunt logs through the mill

imprinting them- his mark. 

My mother keeps a small pile for a raised bed, 

someone holds back the curly maple.  

In the urgent burning rush,

I race my sister, drag a few pieces aside.

Swallows hasten over pines and hemlocks.

Ashes set off from the blaze, 

burning sky lanterns 

pulled into the wind.