Smoke turns the morning light orange on Saturday in this photo taken near the Huckleberry Lookout, provided by the Cedar Creek Fire Incident Command. Credit: Cedar Creek Fire Incident Command via InciWeb and OPB, September 12, 2022
*
*
It is not that fire is snow. It is not even that falling ash is snow. The sky is stunned, swallowed by a yellow glove whose palm opens to haze and drifting filament. Burned bodies, trees that pursed their mouths, that refused to gasp or cry, handrails that melted, that obeyed the persistence of time, they are floating. (Floating only appears directionless.) Summer is winter. Hold up your hand. In winter no one answers. It is not that snow is winter. Breathe in. Your lips, your throat, your lungs. Prepare yourself. Floating is not a weightless task. Crucible, blind pilot, un- yielding conflagration.
*
*
Laton Carter's Leaving (University of Chicago Press) received the Oregon Book Award. His writing also appears in Indiana Review, Narrative, and Split Lip Magazine.