swamp fire 

 

i come back and find this place still only has two traffic lights. wanted it to taste like friday night 

fish fry. tastes more like another funeral and sour duck eggs and sawdust. and this meat market, 

sixteen miles away—another town i don’t have a name for—where mom just ordered an eleven 

pound brisket to fill our stomachs and some other empty cavity. there’s a refrigerated case stuffed 

with beef sticks—cheddar-leek, sweet maple, and something called swamp fire. sticker says it’s 

spicy. sounds like it tastes how i feel. burning from the inside. hollow logs and chirping things 

and bluegill who bite too fast and die on the hook. minivan ride back to nowhere. mom puts the 

meat in the smoker and asks if i wanna go fishing. she says, won’t always feel this way, y’know. 

laughs and says—soon there won’t be anyone left for us to burn.