Joseph Aversano

Breathing Fire

They would've blamed it on the Chimera, had all of this happened back then. "They" being the denizens of Colophon, the nearest Ionian city as the phoenix flies. With hill after hill scorched to a varying degree, and the worst of it charcoal black, one can feel a shiver start in the stands of skeletal wisps; and this will continue all along the drive up past the Tahtali Dam, and along its lake on out to Menderes. And then we hear on the radio of an outbreak to the east. And then of another, but west.

for centuries a tree in a breeze