Land Owners
push
severed limbs into the ground,
anchored in boluses of concrete.

one person
buying
another.

one person
grades
into the breast of a hill.

downstream,
cataracts of silt:
a kind of preventable blindness.

There are all sorts of responses to being held captive:
       death.
       sense less ness.
       rebellion.

The forehead of the fire
leans
into drywall paper
unveils
the pale, chalky gut of gypsum.

I feel certain
that this fire
did not stop to check in at the courthouse,
or request a title report from a title company.
This fire
doesn't rate the generations of land owners
as a significant
detail.

Nor did Krakatoa
Katrina
Sandy
or the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami
consider
the history of human habitation
or the history
of buying
and selling
souls.