Fire Safety

Aluminum tank indifferent in its place behind a glass door in the passageway, like a tea urn in a museum case; screaming-machines that dumbly spend each day waiting for gas or smoke or hands or heat, positioned like beige land mines overhead, sanguine on walls, or posted on the street like dwarf grandfather clocks spray painted red; little gray hydrant in its warlike stance; old fire escape, all-weather paint job peeling, a shelf for threadbare rugs and yellowing plants; sprinkler heads, blooming from the public ceiling; all sitting supernaturally still, waiting for us to cry out. And we will.