After the fire
To Emil
we strip off our clothes,
race upstairs to the shower.
I emphatically declaim,
"Fuck, I love hot water!"
All you can do is laugh.
Smoke is a constant that stays.
After the fire,
our bodies are cleansed;
your head rests on my chest
in this room, much too cold,
and then I think back
to the other fire,
and the other one,
when for six hours
we stood in the rain
and drank beers, and roasted
smokies and s'mores
and stirred the grey ash,
and prayed for flame to return,
which then did return
when, at the very end
of the sodden exercise,
covered in soil and sweat,
I suddenly felt free.