Heat From Other Days

I took the lower path

Full of pellets, unresolved

To avoid the lighted room under the lake

I remember at first

The tilted blue oceans of the valley

As evening took the color from the weeds

I tried to keep the bread and water face

From showing on the mountain

Many years inside the lighted room

A lacerated grin hung from my jaw

Complicated panes of glass

And passing shoulders locked me in

When I was old enough

I pushed aside a tile

And snaked through the cold muck

Into the vast and brittle day

I took the lower path

Full of pellets, unresolved

And I let the heat from other days

Become my fire