Smoke

Junior Hughes had just stepped out from Chick’s Burger Bar

squinting into the glare of early summer sun,

his toothpick bobbing at a jaunty angle

when he heard it, a long low wailing rising to a whine,

a sound heard all over town: the fire station’s siren call

to all volunteers to hustle to the station.

Any minute now Rogersville’s one fire truck would be rumbling

up Depot Street at close to 10 mph, its two main occupants

Chief Noah Britton and his right-hand man

Pete Anderson. Chief Noah would be driving

because Pete at age ten had lost sight in his left eye

during a fight, the untreated eye having grown into

a gelatinous mass that frightened children as well

as many adults. Junior swung aboard as the truck

squalled toward Main where Brady Gladson dropped the sack

bearing a pound of tenpenny nails in his customer’s waiting hand

at Boyd-Lawson Hardware before he pushed toward the door

and in a single leap swung onto the rear of the truck

now nearing 11 mph. Next came Clay Jenkins who laid aside

his leather-stropped and honed straight razor for Hobe Russell

all lathered and settled in the chair and ready for his daily shave;

from around the corner came Snooky Burns, sure this would be

a big scoop for this week’s Rogersville Review;

loping out of City Newsstand came Sweetenin’ Jones

leaving behind his True Crime magazine,

and last came Shoofly Goins, towel wrapped

around his neck and a mound of lunch dishes left waiting

in the sink at Lackey’s Restaurant. The great ship

now revved to 20 mph as Chief Noah shouted

to Pete: “What’s the address?” No human voice

broke the siren’s whine for a long 30 seconds

until Pete stammered, “I thought you got it.”

Then followed sounds only of the rumbling

truck and its lonely siren song until from somewhere

far back on the truck came a clear voice of direction:

“Watch for smoke, boys.”

In the long smolder of time, they rise, these men

long silent in their graves and their stories like smoke

drifting forever over these streets,

these storefronts with now unfamiliar names, this place: