Jon Obermeyer
Inside (SF Firefighter)
Fire tests gold, suffering tests brave men. ―Seneca
There’s the slow swivel of the helmet
before we destroy it: monster, dragon,
that Bastard Beelzebub, the orange-red
ogre of every childhood dream.
Ass to elbow, the hallway floor hump
and spelunk downward into basement;
you carry half your body weight through
every blind fog-bend in the labyrinth.
Dante had no idea of the noise,
the locomotive’s locution of collapse
and the load-bearing beams failing.
Take a seat, friend, within the Inferno,
Let the maître d’ remove your coat,
silks and topper; The Rapture Show
begins shortly. It’s the Northern Lights,
Pink Floyd lasers and the Devil himself
at 150 decibels, on the back stoop
of the Lion’s mouth. I will attempt
one day to describe the heat to you
but our language is so inadequate.