Clusters of chords, moving slowly. The whole world
shimmers with heat, equal parts languid
and feverish. On the horizon,
a red sun—a red songbird’s serenade, carrying the ashes
of a distant fire, thrush feathers curling into dust
and rust-colored smoke. Kindling
sparks inside a cloud, and shudders itself into a low
quaking rumble. The kind that topples trees
and turrets and towers alike. Reverberates
until it eats its own echo. The kind that a person can feel
deep in their chest from a hundred miles
outside of it. All thunderclap and mudslide.
All crawling bass and shivering chorus, robins and wrens
and warbled heartbeats startled
out of slumber, all flocking like comets
across the night-red sky—an open wound
where melody
lies, interrupted.
***
In my dreams, I dance a jig until my feet bleed. When I wake,
my legs are full of holes.
Two by two, like little red animals all in a line. Little moons,
red moons, fingertip-touch fire-red
and burning. Tiptoe-touch against the ground and the earth
trembles. Every nerve vibrates, steel-spun,
wound tight. Every scuffed hair and plucked string. Every synapse
firing itself over a cliff. All day, itching
the back of my mind—how every human passing my burrow
must see my hands shake, my legs
shake, my skin leap from my bones like tinder. How heat
rises. How hate makes
a noise. Makes many noises. Cracking. Thunderous. The sound
of boots coming down and walls
going up. An invitation to pain. How nothing invites pain
quite as readily as fear. How fear
has many eyes
and uses all of them.