written By
After Jarett Moseley
Joshua hands me a lighter and shows me how to use it. We walk to the park by his house and watch trains stitch the ground into
a quilt. The river eats fish. We stand on the tracks until wind echoes our bones. Joshua says he loves to light piles of paper on
fire and watch them burn. He used to swim through cornfields beneath big open skies. He says an M80 can light as fast as a
hummingbird’s tail flaps. He talks of a dream where his hands are stolen. I feel the exuberance of purity. I tell him I like standing
close to the fire, about tending flames after a long glow, embers sizzling like whispers under drops of rain. I tell him of the night I
slept in a tent in the yard to feel free, and the neighbor’s house burned down a few feet away. Cicadas begin to howl. The sun is
under a garbage can lid. We walk to Joshua’s house and open all the windows to let the night in. I feel my face flush. I don’t
know how to tell him that I love him more than fire, more than the roots beneath my teeth. I don’t know how to tell him warmth
descends. I burn from the inside. My hands want to be as cold as the wind.
