The Smell of Campfire
I take my receipts of scar tissue
and trudge through the snow
for more little sticks, disfigured
branches, sprigs of
dry dead pine needles.
This is the fragile conviviality
I envision, my grown son and I
roasting mallows in the dark,
recuperating faith with fistfuls
of untreated lumber.
To our yellow-orange faces I say
to sacrifice me to the weather
if it comes to that. Hopefully
it won’t but we both know
how disproportions creep in
and the campfire requires
a pale-knuckle grip on its memory,
as if the sparks can bark out
colors of coming sunrises or
our uncertainties in disguise.
