爥

A wildfire carried by wind,

Consuming life

before realization,

so alive

that rain-soaked moss

withers and lights,

Whips across miles,

Like dust in a gentle breeze

For the orbital lens

An ember rests deep in the ashes

Ripples its old light out in darkness

The bond tears, the grain cracks

And there, it flies free

A destroyer of invisible worlds

We woke up this morning

left the sheets all scorched and melted

Outside our window

Stands a forest of withering pines

We got in the boat, went down the road to the sea

Sat drifting a while

The tide

rose past the sands

and crumbled the mountains we knew.

We came home around four,

I tripped on the stair.

I sat on the edge of the tub while it filled and ran over

The kids rustled through the tall grass out back

then went on through the pines,

Away.

A fire

Burned down through our necks

And water spilled out from our fingers

We went out walking

under a front-lit sky

Shouts escaped a window,

from that big house on the corner.

Looking in through the walls, the pine, the still-wet paint

There’s the muzzle flare of their mouths, the smoke rising

from their eyes

exhausted.

We walk on

We walk for days and days, and

There is the dome of the roof

The door at its base ajar,

And we look up and learn to see

The far-off fires;

We falter into understanding

And then further on, past memory and unkempt thoughts.