{"id":535,"date":"2020-06-15T00:50:00","date_gmt":"2020-06-15T00:50:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/?p=535"},"modified":"2020-06-14T00:26:04","modified_gmt":"2020-06-14T00:26:04","slug":"fire-break","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/2020\/06\/15\/fire-break\/","title":{"rendered":"“Fire Break” by Cole Depuy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n


One July morning
my older brothers Mark and Ty
hopped into the bed of Pa\u2019s red pick-up
to burn the wheat crops

A controlled burn, they called it
the kind to kill off the old stuff
and fertilize the soil for soybeans

I wanted to join them
but had to sit on the kitchen countertop
and help Ma stir the chicken soup

In October, Mark joined the Marines
we held him tight, cheered
and Pa drove him two hours
to the airport in Wichita

Early July came \u2018round again
and Ty and Pa set flame to the wheat together
just the two of \u2018em

I watched from the front porch
as black smoke covered the Kansas sky
and thought how good it would feel
to let the fire take over

Mark came home that September
I hugged him on the gravel driveway
his arms stayed at his sides
I couldn’t squeeze him any harder

Come December, Ty left the ranch
with his girlfriend
he had joined the Marines, too

I screamed and tore his room apart

When Ty came back he was in a box
Momma cried, folded flag in hand
as they lowered the casket into a summer lawn

First week of July a few years later
and the sun was dripping hot and thick

I rode shotgun with Pa
his Semper Fidelis<\/em> tattoo
sunk deep in his shoulder
the pick-up crunched over path
we plowed to contain the blaze

The fire break

I rolled the window down
lit a gasoline-soaked towel
I had wrapped around a stick

Stuck the torch out the window
let it lick the brown crops as we drove
I didn\u2019t miss a single stalk

orange flames ate the dry wheat
and the sky to blackness<\/p>\n\n\n\n


Cole Depuy\u2019s poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in The Penn Review, Boston Accent, Heartwood, pacificREVIEW and elsewhere. He is a Ph.D. student at SUNY Binghamton\u2019s Creative Writing Program and recipient of the Provost\u2019s Doctoral Summer Fellowship.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One July morningmy older brothers Mark and Tyhopped into the bed of Pa\u2019s red pick-upto burn the wheat crops A controlled burn, they called itthe kind to kill off the old stuffand fertilize the soil for soybeans I wanted to join thembut had to sit on the kitchen countertopand help Ma stir the chicken soup … Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":713,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-535","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poetry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/sheri-hooley-SJuDxxcATbw-unsplash.jpg?fit=640%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=535"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":714,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535\/revisions\/714"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/713"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}