0 Camping With Fire

She put one of the cut log rounds
We were using as stools
Into the fire where it charred
And she carved on it for hours
With a steak knife
Trying for the resemblance
Of a panther’s head

I don’t know what drugs they all took
But one made a torch
Out of a sock on a stick
Soaked in grease from chorizo
Oily laughter keeping me awake
In my sober tent

Another brought his dead snake
On the trip to bury respectfully
Its body curled into a squiggle
I found ineffectively immolated
In the morning on a rock
And my friend was missing
Until noon when she came back haggard
“I was following the prints of a big cat”

--Leah H., 36