You could have heard a mouse
crossing our street, so quiet is it
as to my night duty, I somnambulate.
Ah son
so dark as I put you to my breast,
your sleeping father featureless on the window
side of our bed.

Till into view his face flickers
orange in the seething glare
that's erupting
from the blaze outside

I'm at the window with you still hugged close, when
a bang of bursting glass
tears through the curtain of night

Leaving you nestled with your woken father
I join the gathering flock across the road;
our neighbours' house, long the street's tattiest
we knew was still home
to six children

Into the windowless inferno we peer
for signs of life amid the crackling flames
that rage around a pyre of
bedding and furniture piled high;
hosing firemen arrive to pose
how many are inside?

From next door the parents emerge
rebutting our thronging enquiries with
too easy assurance
the children were safe asleep upstairs
why wake them?

These victims I didn't know
also owned next door; they didn't know that
in my day job, they would be seeing me again,
incendiary eyes,
assessing the material
incentive
for their insurance claim.