Burning Amy

by Alan Catlin

No death from above
napalm run, no car
crash turned fireball,

no girl in the picture
carrying burning jelly
on her back,

but a working girl
in an argument
gone terribly wrong,

soaked with lighter
fluid and set on
fire,

"My husband is not a
monster," his wife would
say.

But what kind of man
is he? Burning Amy
on Backus St.;

something from a nightmare
that leads to Westchester Burn
Unit, relived nightly

something that could never
be forgotten, maybe not a
monster, maybe something else.