THE HOUSEWIVES WATCHING MORNING TV

Of course, your male fire-setter sets
a masculine fire, takes one or two or
sometimes three whole bags of garbage.
The one who do it for sexual gratification
are "pathological arsonists,"
as opposed to your normal arsonists,
and they are all men. Your ladies, now,
they set a grudge fire - tie a pair of nylons
on a neighbor´s doorknob, set them on fire,
or a napkin shoved under a door and lit -
these are your more feminine fires.
They will use their own garbage to start them
and their fires are more delicate. Difference between
the masculine fire and the feminine fire is
the masculine fire burn better
and lasts longer, and is more effective for
loss of property and life, says the assistant
fire commissioner on the talk show.


We stand in living rooms littered like public
hallways, we lean like sacks against the walls,
listening to him calmly, smoke
creeping from our mouths, as if under a door,
black as Emma Bovary´s bile.


Sharon Olds