After the Fire

I remember a red
photo album
that I kept
of the first girl
I ever loved -
Celta -
and there was this fire
about two or so years ago,
back in early 2007,
in one of the rooms
in the apartment
where I was living...
it seemed so chillingly ironic
because that was how
she died,
back on New Years
eve of 1990,
in a fire.

I was told she
didn't suffer
and that it was quick
but they wouldn't
open the casket
and as strange as it
may seem
at the funeral
I really wanted to
open that casket
yet I was also
terrified of
that very idea.

I remember
crying
so uncontrollably
at the funeral...
I don't even remember
crying before that
ever.  If I did
I don't remember.

And through
the next year
of 1991,
I just remember
crying
or wanting to die
or go away
somewhere in
my mind...

I've been thinking
about this
just recently,
I believe this is
a fear I still
face,
that nothing remains,
no matter how
important
or valuable
or how loved,
I just seem to
see people
and relationships
disappear
(like a bad dream)
or in a vampire
movie or show,
where the vampire
just turns to ashes.

Like the photo album
that I held
while it was still
burning,
in that fire,
a couple years
ago.  It was strange
that it  had to happen
in just that one
room.  If the curtains
went up in flames
in the kitchen
they could have
been replaced...
just as the clothing
I lost
can be replaced
but not those
photos...
not when the negatives
are lost...
and several years
of my poetry
was gone as well,
when the computer
was destroyed
in that fire.

I don't even
know where Celta is
buried now...
I went there once
way back
in 1991,
after she died...
I was crying so hard
at the funeral
that her mother
told me not to
come to the
burial... and so I
didn't... but I went
to the cemetery
later... found where she
is buried in a
a mausoleum,
which probably cost
more than a years
rent where she was living
when she died.

I don't even
know what her
mother's last name is
or how to reach her sister
and ask for some
photos of Celta -
why do people just
seem to disappear?
For a while after Celta
died, I would see and visit
her mother but at some
point, for reasons
I don't know
that stopped.

I still have
a vague image
of Celta
in my memory
and I do still
remember
those moments
where I felt
a powerful sense
of love – those
moments that remain.
I'm not holding
onto this past -
I was able to love
again – but knowing
I was loved
is comforting.

By Bruce Whealton
April 25th, 2009