Midnight Flame

At midnight, he can’t see the white picket fence or the tomato stalks, shriveled, in the garden, though he knows the patio, strewn with willow leaves, plumes of tall grasses, upright and still; and, as he peers into the yard, he senses a moment wicking into flame — walking up an arroyo, they gaze back across the Pojoaque valley, spot the glinting tin roofs, cottonwoods leafing along the curves of the river — a green tide surges in their arteries as well as the trees; tonight, spring infuses fall, and memory’s wick draws the liquefied wax of experience up into flame.