Genetics

Genetics

Fire
follows my family
each spark
each flame
a soldier
in the U.S. Cavalry.
First

was the fire in 1973. Flames dropped from the attic of our old
house and burned every quilt we owned. Cousins and neighbors
came from miles away to carry furniture, clothes, our smallest
possessions from the house, but they all arrived too late to save
much. All we had left

was a family portrait
singed
curled at the edges,
all of our dark skin
darkened
by ash and smoke damage.
Next

was the trailer fire in Montana that stole my oldest sister, stole her
husband, stole her little library of books that included a few she
had borrowed from me. All I could think, all I could ask when I
found out about the fire was "Did my books burn?" Since then
we've lost three cars to electrical fires--1981 Chevy Blazer, 1978
Ford Mustang, 1984 Ford van--the last while my younger sister
was driving it along Little Falls Dam and she looked

into the rearview mirror
and saw flames rising up.
She was listening
to Freddy Fender
when it happened, listening ot
"Before the Next Teardrop Falls"
when she stopped the van
turned off the radio
jumped out and ran down the road.
She made it a few feet
when the van exploded

and knocked her over. When the Tribal Cop heard on his radio
that a car was burning down at Little Falls Dam, his first thought
was "Those damned Alexies and their goddamn cars!" He told my
sister that, as they both watched the van burn down to bare frame.
The Tribal Cop told my whole family that, when he drove my sister
back to our home. We all laughed at the odds, not because they were
astronomical, even though they were. We laughed at the magic
of it all,

laughed
at how precise
every little pain can be,
laughed
at the fire
that threatened us
continually,
laughed
when the Tribal Cop
asked my father
if he smoked

and my father said, "Only when I'm on fire." Some nights, I have
this dream that my family sits down to dinner. I want it to be
Thanksgiving dinner but I cannot be sure. We sit down to dinner
and one by one, we all spontaneously combust, until we are just
piles of ash on secondhand chairs. Then, my grandfather

Big Mom
comes back
to sweep us up
with her traditional broom
and sweeps us all
into her beaded bag
and carries what
remains
into the next life
into the next element
and I don't care
if it's earth, or wind.
I just want
to be done
with fire,
with flame and ash.

Sherman Alexie.........from The First Indian On The Moon