When we were kids my parents got an aluminum skiff
and let my brothers and me break up our old wooden rowboat,
then burn the pieces night after night on the beach
with the help of driftwood we gathered every day.
The boat was encrusted with ancient layers of paint
and had brass fittings and screws,
so the color of the flames was always mixing and changing.
Yellow, blue, green — red was the rarest,
and our favorite. We poked at the fire, transfixed,
and never realized that we had become castaways
from our childhoods. Marooned on the warm sand,
we watched Vega, Altair and Deneb —
summer stars we thought we could steer by forever —
not noticing that they were already beginning to set.