We sit on the Zoom call, and beyond
the laptop screen, outside the windows,
a brown-white haze blurs the horizon,
obscuring the mountains beyond. The forest,
a shadow of itself through wildfire smoke.
The pink ember of the sun hangs in the sky
like child’s scribbled drawing. On the screen,
the mother-to-be shows off her belly,
then settles into an overstuffed couch.
She removes frilly bows, tears pink-and-blue
polka-dotted paper, revealing baby things,
so many baby things, from boxes
and plastic packaging, each time, holding
up her baby’s gifts for all to see.

I go between watching her open
the presents and checking my phone:
air quality, containment, forecasted winds,
the evacuation map. Our AQI in the maroon–
hazardous air. We sit inside with windows
and doors sealed, air purifiers humming.
Even still we smell acrid smoke, charcoal
coating our tongues. The fire is now
at 22,450 acres, zero percent contained.
Silvery ash floats onto our deck like snowfall.
I try not to think about how it’s what’s left
of other people’s homes and of forests—
incense cedar and chipmunks, porcupines and bears,
how we are breathing in the dead.

The in-person guests are eating
and drinking and laughing. We are muted
but silent, the glow of the computer screen
in our faces. I look down at my phone:
erratic winds create extreme fire behavior—
candling, creeping, spotting, torching.
A heat wave, a critically dry forest
(which they call fuel) drives the growth.
We all play a shower game, guessing the date
and time of delivery, the baby’s length
and her weight. Then it’s back to opening

more gifts, so many gifts— a breast pump,
a pillow for tummy-time, a children’s book
about the extinction of honeybees.

– Suzanne Roberts

In our ECO LIT series, Red Canary Magazine dedicates space for established writers and emerging voices to imagine better ways of being.