Endangered Species

Out the living-room window I see the two older children burning household trash under the ash tree in wind and rain. They move in slow motion about the flames, heads bowed in concentration as they feed each fresh piece in, hair blown wild across their faces, the fire wavering in tongues before them so they seem creatures half flame, half flesh, wholly separate from me. All of a sudden the baby breaks slowly down through the flexed branches of the ash in a blaze of blood and green leaves, an amniotic drench, a gleaming liver-purple slop of ripe placenta, head first and wailing to be amongst us. Boy and girl look up in silence and hold gravely out flamefeathered arms to catch her, who lands on her back in their linked and ashen hands. Later, when I take her in my arms for a walk to that turn on the high road where the sea always startles, I can see how at intervals she's thunderstruck by a scalloped green leaf, a shivering jig of grassheads, or that speckled bee that pushes itself among the purple and scarlet parts of a fuchsia bell. And her eyes are on fire.