Today my room smells like burnt eucalyptus I don’t know where the fire is, but close Nitre, or the surreptitious burning off In a forty gallon drum, fireworks or garden scraps I cannot tell which A tricycle from the ashes like a saint The rubber wheels and handle grips Gone to char and treacle Flames dripping with that jet propulsion whine Or, perhaps – perhaps, all this has remained For the worst part of a year, the scent Of static ringing in my ears The distant immolation of Vicks vapour rub Rubbed carefully in cloth, to clear the sinuses Left to shawl across a crooked tap As the old wives said, vinegar, petroleum and heat Against the ghost like shapes Of our slowly cast adrift miasmas
