"Fire"

In Mark Doty's poem "House of Beauty," the title phrase becomes a recurring echo at the end of each stanza. And like a growing fire, each succeeding stanza becomes one line longer as the poet reveals more and more about the fire-engulfed establishment.

What a treasure-trove of sonorous details the poet shares! And note how by the end of the poem, this particular House of Beauty has transformed into all instances of the beautiful-yet-threatened:

. . . in among the crèmes and thrones,
the helmets and clippers and combs . . .

In the dark recess beside the sink
—where heads lay back to be laved
under the perfected heads rowed along the walls—

. . . a new plume of smoke joining the others,
billow of dark thought rising
from that broken forehead of the House of Beauty

. . . jagged glass jutting like cracked ice
in the window frame . . .

. . . The world as it is (for which Jersey City stands in nicely)
torches the houses of beauty wherever it finds them.

While the beauty salon is destroyed by a fire, the main character in Lisa Allen Ortiz's poem manages to survive a blaze. Where Mark Doty's poem is conveyed by a disembodied observer, the Ortiz poem contains a whole cast of characters--he, my friend, we, a firefighter--including a tortoise with a considerable world-view, who by turns is both a philosopher and a wise-cracker. We learn what he says and what he doesn't say.

By the end of the poem, the focus shifts back to the speaker. She is quite willing to detach herself from the travails of the tortoise. But what about her own children?

I go home. He's not my problem. From my window
I see my children running in from school, their backpacks

bouncing. It is January. They are young.
I have lots of time.

House of Beauty (Mark Doty)

In Jersey City, on Tonnelle Avenue,

the House of Beauty is burning.

On a Sunday morning in January,

under the chilly shadow of the Pulaski Skyway,

the House of Beauty is burning.

Who lobbed the firebottle through the glass,

in among the crèmes and thrones,

the helmets and clippers and combs,

who set the House of beauty burning?

In the dark recess beside the sink

—where heads lay back to be laved

under the perfected heads rowed along the walls—

the hopeful photographs of possibility darken,

now that the House of Beauty is burning.

The Skyway beetles in the ringing cold,

trestle arcing the steel river and warehouses,

truck lots and Indian groceries,

a new plume of smoke joining the others,

billow of dark thought rising

from that broken forehead of the House of Beauty

—an emission almost too small to notice, just now,

the alarm still ringing, the flames new-launched

on their project of ruining an effort at pleasure,

jagged glass jutting like cracked ice

in the window frame, All things by nature,

wrote Virgil, are ready to get worse;

no surprise, then, that the House of Beauty is burning.

We do not live here, the Fire Department’s on the way,

so we’re at leisure to consider motive.

Personal enmity, arbitrary malice?

A will to pull down the forms of order,

hungry for an end? Or for equity:

If we can’t have beauty, you won’t have it either?

The world as it is (for which Jersey City stands in nicely)

torches the houses of beauty wherever it finds them.

        (from New and Selected Poems, pages 16-17:  HarperCollins, New York, NY, © 2008)

The Tortoise Survives the Fire (Lisa Allen Ortiz)

He’s at my friend’s house now.

In the driveway, we watch him

with our arms crossed, the beer-stained

winter light seeping through fence, vines.

He’s the size of a coffee table

80 years or so they say, dumb-ass slow

but with cinder-burn eyes.

He eats nasturtiums. We have our health

he says to us. Suffering and the end of suffering, he says.

He does not say carpe diem. He does

not say bombs away, bottoms up. Nor does

He say the Good Lord will provide.

He does not say I’ve been lucky. He does not say:

They had it coming.

The house was burned to rubble, ash,

skeletons of charred beams. The humans survived

because they were out. The bird

(exotic, singing, caged) died. A firefighter

found the tortoise in the ash, walking out the melted

garden gate, all blessed in soot.

He said: You think that was hot,

let me tell you about this South American tortoise I knew

in ’68. Not really. There’s nothing glib

about survival. Is there.

So either it was a miracle or a thick shell.

The tortoise shakes his head.

Everybody wants wings, he says, but not in a gloating way.

I go home. He’s not my problem. From my window

I see my children running in from school, their backpacks

bouncing. It is January. They are young.

I have lots of time.

        (from www.poems.com , © 2009)