Fog — Peatsmoke

The Garden of Eden is in the center
of Golden Gate Park. A lot of homosexuals
died, and their names were written down
in granite. I’m trying not to be
so cynical. I’ve been taking a photo
of every tulip that catches my eye.
My camera roll blooms with color.
I live far from Eden these days.
At least there are flowers here too.
But I miss the fog–how it turned a blue day
sepia. I miss the girls I loved
back before I knew what to call
that sweetness. Once we sat
in a hammock, talked of kissing
and never kissed. I miss
the redwood trees. How they make
their own dusk. I wasn’t a straight shooter
even back then. I was always looking
for moss between paving stones
thinking it could save me. My mother
had a boyfriend back in high school
who took the night train to New York
to meet strange men. Right around
when men started dropping mystery
dead. My uncle lost a lover, then
another. I grew up in a garden full
of ghosts. God expelled us from paradise
so He could pave it and put up a parking
meter charging three dollars an hour.
We didn’t care, my mother says.
We kept finding backrooms
to dance in. We made art out of
everything we touched. Then, the sky-
rocketing rent. The exodus
to the suburbs. How could they let us stay
in the city? We were so dangerous
in our joy. Now I only visit
Eden in summer, when the grass
is dying gold. I watch clouds roll in–
my earliest lullaby. Between my feet,
moss furs between cracks in stone.
I sit on a rock, being a revolution.
I think I can still grow.

about the author

Esmé Kaplan-Kinsey is a California transplant living in Portland, Oregon. In their writing, they hope to explore human-nature relation and deconstruct binaries that cast humankind in opposition to the natural world. Their work appears or is forthcoming in publications such as Adroit Journal, SmokeLong Quarterly, and the Cincinnati Review. They can be found on X/Bluesky/Instagram @esmepromise.

about the artist

Thad DeVassie is a writer/painter who creates from the outskirts of growing midwestern city. He is the author of three chapbooks with words finding homes recently in Gone Lawn, HAD, Hex, Scaffold, The Citron Review, The Prose Poem, Vast Chasm, and others. His paintings have appeared in Pithead Chapel, Phoebe, Hayden's Ferry Review, and Salt Hill, among others. Much like his written work that spans from CNF to absurdist flash fiction and prose poetry, his artwork straddles a spectrum with a similar aesthetic. You can find his work at www.thaddevassie.com.