alive

thyme burned
to the bottom of a pan
blackened tack
your hot hands
tremble smoking
reds when
you used to smoke
menthols.
give me verbs about
bombs on sand.
tell me when
you have ptsd
that you won't be
totally lost from--

I will try not
to scorch the garlic
when you
kick off your boots--

but then you
tell me that
you could still
be drowning
in Iraqi mud--
pulses through your temples
and then
the air was
red-brown sticky
between the hard
grains whippping--
and I know when
you start yelling
get down get down,
that you don't smell
the marjoram or the salt.
your nostrils flare
like flames on rubber
hum-v wheels.
you look through
me looking at you
to the smoke rising
from the pan, just as
the smoke detector
goes off to bring you
back.

and as you cross
into the kitchen
where I stand wielding
a wooden spoon;
you turn off the burner
and tell me that
you are here because
it got passed to
your brother,
who in his last
remembered the
smell of frying bacon
and maple syrup,
he gripped your vest
hard--

light light light then nothing.