June— the fires in Arizona splashed
hot milk across the sky, the lingering film blisters
my throat.
Instead of rely on your eye contact I study the jars
stuffed with cacao, millet, corn kernels, mulberries;
Does the glass ever sense the oats?
I need a balm for my throat now.
It has never come from your kiss, your eyes no less.
It is autonomous, saliva flooding thin membranes,
tear ducts pooling, the remembrance
of my own heart.
I have found my salve.
I have liberated you from the mirage of you.
A pink haze is drawn in the window. It is a plume of Tree Spirits.
The sky is honoring the earth’s trauma
by blowing incinerated bark into the airways
of her creatures—smell, the most memorable sense.
I know Tree friends, here, who metabolize that pain
and people who keep jars full of ashes.
I know people who have walked
water into flames
and returned with eyes wet,
throats stinging and pink.