What to Eat, What to Drink, What to Leave for Poison

First Fire

29 first firE Stripped in a flamedance, the bluff backing our houses quivered in wet-black skin. A shawl of haze tugged tight around the starkness.We could have choked on August. Smoke thick in our throats, nearly naked as the earth, we played bare feet over the heat caught in asphalt. Could we, green girls, have prepared for this? Yesterday, we played in sand-carpeted caves. The store we built sold broken bits of ice plant, empty snail shells, leaves. Our school’s walls were open sky. We reeled in wonder from the hills, oblivious to the beckoning crescendo and to our parent’s hushed communion. When our bluff swayed into the undulation, we ran into the still streets of our suburb, feet burning against a fury that we did not know was change. ...