79

He held the hose for what it was:
A live conduit. The waters around his
Feet rippled and frayed in the heat
Coming off the building, seeming to
Boil across the pavement and to
Transubstantiate into the heaving air.
The hose was buckling behind him
And a thundering cord of whiteness
Described a parabola into the flames.
He seemed lifted with its power,
A lesser will subsumed and made
Again in a din of massive combustion
And straining, pale hydraulics.
A sudden wind drew the fire up out of
The building and it made fugitive
Shapes in the black and resolved. The
Fire fighter crouched low into the black
Smoke and fastened to his aperture.