Radha Marcum

Fire Season

we half sleep : tree-smoke enters our shadeless frames 

as morning probes the house : I rise under a sky

democratized by fire : haze scattering photons all over 

us : a red horizon : a window letting in the slow 

slipping notes of goldfinches gleaning last year’s weeds 

as dark pines eat stars in your dream : I can see

you younger : jumping into another smoldering forest

with just the tools you could carry on your back :

yesterday I watched beetles deforming the ornamental

roses : ravenous : fucking with insane shine amidst 

shriveled petals : saw smokelight in the cemetery trees :

now somewhere morning sits outside these fires 

looking into the flames : starting a new story as the doctor 

adjusts her gaze to measure the dark perimeters 

of blazes spreading fast in you : so I say don’t unsettle : 

stay asleep : suspend your mind like the budworm 

dangling in the spruce : sleep through the smokelight I say