A hearth’s fire in deep snow January,
and we all slept in the living room
with doors closed to save propane
while I woke every few hours to add
a log because dad was overnighting
for the trucking company, leaving me
as the man to tend the warmth
against clear skied, bright star, bitter
cold to make the difference
at the end of the month for groceries.
You can’t mistake the smell. It soaks
even your follicles with itself—
peat, birch bark, almost black pepper.
So I understand the king marveling
as three boys emerged not only
unburnt but without bitter fragrance
of his arrogant furnace. The dead men
lay by the door with toasted flesh.
The boys warm with the Presence,
aflame but not burning.