The smoke that filters the sky into varying hues of salmon and apricot.

The crackling of a campfire. The axe heavy in my hand, and the satisfying split of wood at the end of a swing.

His hand on my leg, gently stroking my skin, as he reads his book.

Heat between our bodies.

My hand wedged in a granite crack. The skin of my knuckles scraping off against the quartz crystals. My blood being left behind on the rocky outcrop.

Walking in the dark around the lagoon. A beaver gnawing loudly on wood. Raccoons paddling for crayfish in the reeds. A coyote darting across the path.

Cycling out to a secret, hidden beach in the night. A crescent of soft sand, tucked up against the sea wall. Drinking and making out and our hands down each other’s pants. We should be teenagers, to be here doing this, but instead here we are, me nearly forty and him nearly fifty. A freighter sails past, the thrumming from the ship’s motor pulsing through the water and the sand into our bodies.