In Creve Coeur, Missouri

What is “In Creve Coeur, Missouri” I took this as that there was a photographer taking pictures of a young woman taking her last breathes in a fireman’s arms. It talks about how the fireman is bent over the rag body held like impossible laundry pulled too soon from the line. When I read that line and a little more into it all I got out of it was that the fireman was bent over her and holding her, but the body was so ragged that it may have well been burned very badly. It mentions also about her hair standing out like a flame and that she is naked with no name. As I thought earlier about her being burnt I start to realize I may have been correct. With her hair standing out like a flame I start to picture her hair either completely burnt off or just still hot from where most of it was. Her close was burned off of her in this fire and as far as her name she could not speak to tell the fireman anything. She is no longer a baby, almost a child, and not yet a ghost. This young babe girl is so young, but out of the point of being called a babe. I notice she is not a ghost; therefore she is still alive and still unable to speak. She is so small and young to where it talks about her pressing her doll-like fist to his professional chest. Her head falls back and as the fireman tries to resuscitate her they start to wonder if she will live or in the case of the poem stand again. It tells you that the fireman has done this time and time again using CPR. One way it talks about what he does is it states that he’s sucking the spirit back to us from its lair of smoke. With him continually saving people’s lives they say that they will call it a fine surprise, because apparently this doesn’t happen to him much. The last line says that “The snapshot won a prize though it couldn’t revive her that night in Creve Coeur.” There were two things that stuck in my head the part about the fireman always saving the lives of people and the photographer taking the picture of a disaster. The fact that the fireman saved lives again and again, and the fact that everyone around expected him to save her as well was normal. We expect EMT, fireman, ect. to save our lives, but we also realize as much as we would want everyone saved it’s impossible to save them all. I understand that people need to make a living working and his job consists of taking pictures, but to take a picture of a young girl dyeing in a fireman’s arms is just wrong.