Camping

That deep slow thick sweetness

Rich like caramel

Breathing like stolen kisses

in parking lots benind bars,

the heat of memory burning

through the miles of years,

the fragile blossom of a

volunteer squash, yellow, with

a crooked neck, appearing intermittently when least expected,

absences creating their own codas and patterns—fermatas stretching like

mozzarella when you try to pull the slice too soon, dragging everything good off the neighboring slices, leaving a mushy, colorless slab of dough to get left in the pan, robbed of sauciness and spicy-salty heat, growing colder

faster than the other slices

then chosen by a child who just wants

a piece without all of the yucky stuff.

Sitting by the lake, drinking coffee

and Bloody Marias, talking about catching fish, throwing another log on the fire. Roasting meats marinated in fruit—peach, raspberry, and pomegranate. Eating with fingers by the fire, opening another beer before walking alone into the trees, the music fading into stillness, moonlight on water, diamond dust stars sprinkled on a velvet midnight deeper than the root of all knowledge, suspended in motion so insanely fast you can’t see it, could only begin to feel it if this flying rock we’re stuck to like glue slammed to a stop, wind only a memory in the honey dripping through pomegranates like the slowest sunset stalled on the tracks when it’s time to pick up the kids from school.

Or eating a peach from the passenger floorboard hauling ass down I-20 to the horse park on the third of July with cotton mouth and a pair of Allman Brothers tickets won from the local classic rock station, back when the internet was new and radio stations still had DJs and contests.

Tending the fire and fetching more wood, finding a just-silvering slab of cedar glowing like a ruby among the humble splits of pine and elm. Sonnets and sestinas become villanelles in this quiet clustered like cones in conifers, the sentry of pines lining the lake, towering over silver river birches fluttering their autumn-rich leaves like new bracelets older than time itself.

Peach-raspberry-pomegranate-lime-tequila pork chops with hummus, mango-ginger white stilton and pomegranate seeds and caramelized banana on multigrain bread

Soot and woodash grubbing my hands. I continue to poke the fire, haul wood in my wagon. I’ve been outside all day, among the trees, by the water, tending the fire.