Soot

Her earth was then shaped like an oven that would let out smoke from her eyes the blue-gray smoke of love for her kids and for us in holiday knicker-pants clustered around her for stories and nuts as if the earth had turned oven, the sun its fire.

In her kitchen she had the earth-stove with a fire licking the dark sky of iron pan.She roasted nuts on it for kiddie stomachs. The smoke from her logs climbed the wall and the thatch of the roof blackening it to the color of the pan that had the nuts dancing in pain on it like black deeds.