Timber

The cold drew us to the den like bears,
and we stared at the fire, thinking,
until the embers started to look soft and orange-pink like taffy.
When the logs settled, they made sounds like breaking peppermints.

That place was such a summer part of me – such a part of summer me
so far removed from these ice days and this candy fire that I felt little,
and knew that to be deceptive.
Everyone knows that cold numbs the hurt.

The candy fire crackled and whispered to remind me
of another fire in another season,
where we traded kisses like secrets by the water
after all our worries had gone to sleep.

And I felt the linoleum, too smooth on scuffed bare feet,
felt the ash still clinging to my eyelashes
when I ran back up to the cabin for another lighter or another drink –
smiling all the while about how beautiful he was in the flashes from the fireworks.

I remembered getting lost in the metallic smell from
the cup of quarters I was feeding into the greedy slot machine,
lost in the thrum of the lever going back and the tumblers spinning
and constantly shifting my balance on that stepladder until I wasn’t conscious of it anymore.

I remember three a.m., lots of mornings, in the front room
by the kitchen, careful not to turn on too many lights or make too much noise,
careful not to scatter poker chips too far or lose the Jack of Hearts
under my grandmother’s old beige recliner.

I remember sleeping bags lined up in the living room and inner tubes against the wall
for my fourteenth birthday party. My tenth, eleventh, twelfth birthday parties.
The sound of my footsteps, walking back to wake Hunter for breakfast,
The rain on the roof and the clock digitally blinking the time in red from the corner.

The character of that place
was borne on the backs of the brown spiders
the sneak in through the gap under the kitchen cabinets
or the blue-tailed skink in the corner of the living room.

And some of that was lost with the timber –
it was nothing men could build, but it deserves our trying.