Potato Bake

Potato Bake

Like two children in the abandoned lot we are,
crouched over an illicit fire, expressly forbidden,
but essential to bake the spuds purloined in prank
from some maternal pantry,
hands clutching our gains and matches
rattling in the pocket, innocent of subterfuge
but, in that day and age, allowed a freedom
forever denied the generations that followed.

The smile in your eyes speaks of a memory
identical, though separated by oceans
and a hemisphere we were, still decades apart,
a lifetime of lessons preparing our wandering ways
until, chastened and so much older,
we shared and compared the adventure
of campfires in far flung continents.

As those children in the abandoned lot we are,
guarding our secret and hidden fire,
undeterred by the laws of combustion,
mindful only of the joys of anticipation.
But you are my fire and I am yours,
each somehow dependent on the other;
feeding off the oxygen of ourselves.


Line Count: 22
Free Verse