Spinning Pins

This house melted before we ever saw it. Two pins flanked its entrance, left and right.



In the fire one pin was badly injured. Another remains healthy. Before the event they were a pair to mark a home. Now, unequal, they have separated their functions--one to suffer, perhaps die sooner, in its skeletal look and eventual absence declaring the disaster.



The other to mark its own safety from fire, and to hint at a time before a mistake.



Long after the smoke had spread too thin to smell, someone came to tend another pin. They pulled down the old one and threw it under the unburned tree. They put a new one in the spot and planted mums. These have died.