Do you remember when we were summer and sweat, 
when we were barn snakes and lit matches, 
towering sycamores, and white pine? 

We were crawdads in creekbeds, 
clayface warriors, and mud-covered cavedwellers. 
We were rocking chairs, and feet perched 

on the balcony waiting for the storm to roll in.
We were crackling fires and damp railroad ties,
a million pin-poked holes in the fabric of the sky.

We were trails to Sugar Camp and Buffalo,
with no switchbacks to save us from erosion.
We were leaves of three, let them be,

and patchouli-soaked skin. Do you
remember when we were iron ore
and slag, a doxology sung through

the throat of a furnace? Do you remember
when we were a swift-moving canoe
taking advantage of the current?

Tell me, do you remember?