At the Fire Pit
At the Fire Pit A maple leaf floats unmoving in a rain-diluted Mason jar of beer, frozen in amber. You sat over there, the blue camp chair cradling a puddle in the divot you left. Beneath twig ends and singed flakes of bark the ash is a thick gray paste. Not long back there was flame here, heat, sweet scent of pine-laced flannel. We watched tree-thoughts flutter from limb to limb, knew the conversation was too big for us and were fine in the silence. Now, the brittle sticks leaned in a brittle teepee, even the possibility of such warmth demands more than all of my paper, all of my breath.