fog on fire

i wake up in an orange darkness, a sepia-toned fog so thick that the buildings across the street are muffled against my eyes, the haze autumn-ripe and close. my fancy iphone camera refuses to capture it, resolving it into a grey like any other day, incorporating warmth as brightness, when in fact, it is darker than any blue or purple could ever be.

fires are burning somewhere

it has smelled of smoke before, ashes tucked into the million billion droplets in passing night puffs, seeping through cracks. now we can see it, in our mind’s eyes, a city in flames.

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The ground is uneven everywhere I’ve ever lived pt 3

Da and Mennie’s house in Berkeley tilted up. The ground floor was a basement, packed earth floors smooth and almost-damp to the barefoot touch. The second floor, the actual house, was perched on top like a doll’s house on stilts. Peeling white-painted front steps led to a light blue door. It was sweetly clean and seemingly miniature, but, like my grandparents, somehow a little off: just inside, the floor sloped away almost imperceptibly, down toward the backyard, which technically straddled the Oakland-Berkeley border, pitching you into the book-filled, light-warmed home, to be offered diet coke, generous opinions, and riotous stories.