I scrape the remains of roasted marshmallow from my fingertips
with greedy teeth and ignore the dirt of unwashed hands that comes
with it. Someone hums a campfire song; I’ll still remember the words
when I’m thirty. Fingernails fill with dried sweat and sunscreen as I itch
at the morning’s bug bite. Sun-stained cheeks fade from rose to amber
and the crackle of the campfire smells like a home I’ve never been to.
“I can see the Big Dipper,” you say and point to Orien’s Belt. I don’t
correct you; not out of kindness, but because for the next decade I’ll
point to Orien’s Belt and call it the Big Dipper too. I don’t remember
where we were or even why we were there, but I still remember the
taste of the rapids and the way every caterpillar had a name.
Takes me back to cook outs and the summer my sister and I made little houses for the tiny tree frogs. Poor little frogs. Did we name them?
Your poem takes me to a time of innocence, when nature and simple pleasures were closer to us all. It makes me remember how I named the gophers in my yard and every dragonfly I ever saw. Thank you.