"Life and Pandemic" - Spring 2020

(heart)h
across hot coals again
just to
keep warm.
sulfur wraps its arms around my neck
like a lover,
and it’s an awful smell:
charcoal, brimstone,
one step closer to spontaneous combustion—
a forgotten hearth burning itself
into oblivion,
wet kindling against the
backdrop of
potent gasoline
clinging like the scent of
a rotting corpse,
secondhand smoke
laying claim to
fragile lungs.
and perhaps i am merely
predisposed to a certain brand of affection, but
i have loved embers
before they
burst into flame,
the promise of a warm winter night by the hearth,
another body to leach away the cold—
yet these moths never seem to
outlast the
first flicker.
Amanda Hall