ESCAPE

in memory of Michela Marciano

1
She came to escape the fire
of Vesuvius, an eruption
that blew off the ring
of its crater, molten fingers
reaching for her village,
a fire that burned for ten days.
Roofs collapsing, lives collapsing
from the weight of ash.

2
She leapt to escape the fire
in a shop with 288 sewing machines
but only 27 buckets of water
and no way out except
to suffocate in the smoke
or jump--an ember
falling from the sky.
She left the way she came.

*Among the 146 victims of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire noted in The Triangle Fire by Leon Stein and Triangle: A Fire that Changed America by David Von Drehle.