She asked me what it was like
to live up there where it
got Winter early and Spring so late.
I had to sit for a second to remember.
Even though remembering’s
almost all we old guys do.
Mostly what I recalled was the heat
on my face and the chill on my back,
like when I would chase the sirens
and lights to those trailer fires,
where someone’s whole life,
and few lives themselves,
would go up in a smoke so stinking
it clings to my memory harder
than it clung to my clothes back then.
But the fires weren’t the recollection
I was thinking of when she asked me.
No, it was heat of your breath on my face
and the icy chill of the known unknown
coursing down my back and how they melted
together and steamed within me ~ and us ~
that one night I’ll never forget.
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