Matthew Hollis

The low tide brings her in, scouring the surf-line for dogweed and jellies, stones coughed from the sea.

What interests her more is the take of wood that she gathers for the fire. She knows how things burn,

beginning with the kindling: birch bark and fir cones, dust from the wood wasps, dried grasses, wisp cotton, a feather.

Then the fragments of spark-wood: willow and cedar, an arrow of...