punks

when we were kids we used to light long smoldering incense looking rods that would burn down slowly like a cigarette. we called them “punks,” and instead of lighting new matches for every round of firecrackers, we could just touch our punks to  the firecracker fuses and set them off. cattail seedheads look just like those old-fashioned fuse lighters, and i have just discovered that cattail seedheads are called, you guessed it, punks.

turtle lake, shoreview, minnesota