To my wife

There was a fire at the ridge top, one year of miles away from our home but we didn’t know how close or how far away when the smoke snuffed out the light. Knowing distance from closeness without air, light is delirium. I forgot how you smell, how you taste I lost my eighth sense the fumes swallowed it we shared one amygdala two blind moles smoked out from the underground. The hill from our window was gone and with it the way we used to look at it together. Sooty smoke turned us into ghosts and Springtime became Halloween I really thought these costumes could fall off, I thought we would be naked again I willed desire to come from nothing and yet, nothing. So, you went for defensible space your vows turned to sweat turned to salt, my lot in life became Lot’s wife with ghoulish unsleeping eyes clearing a fire line and I went towards the flames like a villain, playing a hero, but really a young girl, with no plan and no map home only my bared body to hold back harm. I am no different than a tree, burning with a force much greater. You are no different than a heart, bleeding out. And when I find my way back a thermal burn is a moral injury ripened into poetry, into heat our heart can hear into a sear our tongues can taste, when I find my way back the bed will be made your hair will smell like a campfire, your hair will smell like a campfire. When I find my way back, we can watch the sun and the moon kiss through the window. When I find my way back, we can watch them kiss, together.