Michael Tyrell
Brooklyn, NY
Of the House Burning in the Background of an Obscure Family Polaroid (2)
As if the disappeared too are a family—
faces not like petals
but deathcaps
breaking out on the platforms.
Nothing to hold,
not even a grudge, but they hold
me all the same, some momentary
reunion, telling secrets for once
too useful to set
burning in the background.
*Read “Of the House Burning in the Background of an Obscure Family Polaroid (1)” here.
Michael Tyrell is the author of the poetry collection The Wanted and has published poems in many magazines, including recent issues of Fogged Clarity, The New Republic, and The Iowa Review. With Julia Spicher Kasdorf, he edited the anthology Broken Land: Poems of Brooklyn.