When I was young I would always ask for fire
And think that blue flame tasted like hot freezie,
That it would burn my tongue cold.

Orange flame tasted like lightning syrup,
A spark on the roof of my mouth,
A glow worm and a scar.

I liked to watch flames move in my grandfather’s glasses
While he smoked and drank at the pit—
And me with the poker stick.

He told a story from his hunting days,
When my father was a boy my age
And he almost shot him by accident.

When he went to sleep I snuck a sip of his whiskey
And felt it burn down my neck.
I stole his cigarettes and smoked my mouth dry.

Alone at the dying fire I hungered for lies:
For stories of lives not lived by the tellers
But wished for instead, then forgotten.

I heard the sound of a thousand stone toads
Choking on dead birds’ bones,
And on the pit’s ring I melted my soles.

The coals crackled and shone like treasures from beneath the earth,
And I wanted to bite into one—taste the crumbling ashes
Like black cinnamon; like some kind of poisonous sand.