It comes in, the peat smell
of smoke, though all windows
are shuttered in the house.
What’s burning? I wonder
aloud. As it turns out,
a building under renovation
across town, near the harbor.
And how does the scallion
I chop into slivers on my small
bamboo cutting board relate to
the latest news from the world?
Any distance between two
points can be collapsed,
a teacher showed students:
tracking with arrows drawn
in whiteboard marker
how metaphor rows—
from blueberry to pie to milk
to winter to warm to kitchen
to eating to lonely to fire.
In response to Via Negativa: Death grip.