If We’re Not the Fire 

Giant Sequoia cones are roughly half the size 
of my skull. Not my skull sliced clean 
in two, but my skull shrunk evenly 
on each curved side until it has roughly half 
the diameter in each direction. That is to say, 
Giant Sequoia cones are large for what they are— 
seed receptacles roughly football sized and rough 
to the touch. You don’t bury them. They are opened 
by heat. Not the heat you and I make in our stuffy tent 
breathing each other’s camp-breath, nor even 
the heat of our sex, but the heat of real flame, 
the kind that burns a forest clean. Giant Sequoias 
are early adopter trees, seeding the forest over again. 
Perhaps we are the seeds.