Dry sticks, thorns, perhaps old cardboard: tinder.
The sky swelling from the east
was blatantly empty today.
I imagined Mexican cactuses
set out along the side of the road.
But there were no cactuses.
I didn’t have even a single matchbox
in case I needed to light a fire.
Perhaps I love you more than I like you,
I don’t really know how someone could like
sharp, protruding parts that shred
up his insides. Or else:
I like and respect you, but it would take
some kind of spiritual slip of the tongue
to ever trust you again.
Which I’m obviously just telling myself, because I will trust you
at once, and for all. So much of this dust
has gotten into the air filter:
it was supposed to be beige like the wall, but it’s slate
like the skin of a taciturn elephant,
all in the rumbles of the covered sea.