Each summer at Grandma’s house,
my sister and I would bake cakes in the sandbox
and roast hot dogs pierced onto sticks from the brush
while my mother would poke garbage down into the barrel
and burn a fire that scorched the dusk
and left our hand-me-downs smoky for days.
Her cigarette smoke would spiral
into the row of pines with the fireflies
and I remember thinking,
Run, Run.