Excerpt from the book Feeding The Fire

The Burning Hat

Whatever grief my parents felt
was lost on me, or is lost to me now.
But I do remember the Panama hat
that they brought back from the apartment
of Whoever-It-Was (a great-great-aunt?)
and gave to me. All afternoon I wore it
(despite the way it fell over my eyes),
pretending I was in a far-off country
where the hat brim fended off the sun
that blazed all day, even in winter.
I finally took it off at dinnertime,
placing it beside me on the bench
where I sat with my back to the fire.
The next thing I remember is how it fell
into the fireplace, and how it felt
to see it blaze up with the sound
of a great wind: unbearable. I reached
for the flames, then, through a blur of tears,
saw something amazing: the hat began to shrink—
smaller and smaller, yet holding its shape,
until I thought it was going to disappear
and screamed for it to stop. It stopped.
And there it was, more precious than before,
a perfect hat for a doll or puppet—too small for me
but longed for all the more. The flames
had died; a few small sparks crawled over it
with icy tinkling sounds. I held my breath,
then let out again in a mournful sob
when that ghostly hat broke into ashes.