Ash of mountain
Silt river bed in toes
Rain pelting my bare back
I emerge from jungle
Bright light, orange glow
Thick air chokes
Unable to speak
My eyes blink, water
Voice vacant
Uncontrolled burn
Charred vocal chords
on tape, language stolen by fire
Museum aflame
Heritage lost in a breath
my people disappeared over time
stored in cobwebbed fire traps.
Footnote: Brazilian Museum fire 2018
Serena M. Agusto-Cox, a Suffolk University graduate, writes more vigorously than she did in her college poetry seminars. Her day job continues to feed the starving artist, and her poems can be read in Dime Show Review, Baseball Bard, Mothers Always Write, Bourgeon, Beginnings Magazine, LYNX, Muse Apprentice Guild, The Harrow, Poems Niederngasse, Avocet, Pedestal Magazine, and other journals. An essay also appears in H.L. Hix’s Made Priceless, three poems in the Love_Is_Love: An Anthology for LGBTQIA+ Teens, and a Q&A on book marketing through blogs in Midge Raymond’s Everyday Book Marketing. She also runs the book review blog, Savvy Verse & Wit, and founded Poetic Book Tours to help poets market their books.