this was written inside Claudia Retamal's house..

Fire

Fire has a certain lull
when stared at---
the wooden stove with bronze pipe
that heats this house.
By this time in Coyhaique
wood smoke fills the valley
as if it were fog (rolling,
immense thicknesses
that surround a mountain's
side like glacial ice).
but there's a smell
of barbecue, or
Spartan funeral pyre
all around the valley.
But we aren't outside.
We're inside
avoiding winter
like small critters human presence.
To spite the outside,
we clench together & enjoy
the soft stories the stove tells us:
of the fire that forged it
fires it's known and the lives
of trees. We finish
in bed, faces flushed
a burnt thumb
from when we fed the night
a little more wood.