Record summer of fire

close to your home —

a trailer, parked at the confluence

of the Columbia River overflowing

with fish, and tinder dry

Methow Valley. Gone. The water tower,

school, and churches.

Your tortilla comal and family

pictures set in Michoacán, zircon

tiara from a glowing quinceañera,

torched. Smoked too, was your job

tending hilly orchards where apples

caramelized on the branch. Fire left you

stranded like the bear cub

whose mother couldn’t outrun

the flames. Afterwards, no one ate 

the charred cows branded

and fenced in pasture, who were bred

not to flee, as you did, arriving

years ago with a few pesos, holding

tears on your tongue, and a blazing

hope — you might have been

the man standing, garden hose in hand,

spraying down his roof, green lawn

of dreams, untouched.
A previous version of this poem appeared under the title "Smoking" on the Washington State Poet Laureate site.