A cold spring led itself into a dry and windy summer.
We carried magnifying glasses, searching for something
supple under the desiccated grasses,
each of us flirting in our own way with an oppressive sun.
Months of days filtered like dust across the light,
quietly accreting against the glass.
The air was stale. Someone said
suicide was a way to end asking a question,
then fell silent and kept walking.

Something consolidated, then sparked
and we were thrown forward, leaving
a singed trail, burning ourselves
across time and distance.
Smoke drifted upward, but we were too far
from where we started to follow the wound
across the land, to know what had been
split apart or what needed repair.
We could not tell if or where
we had come to rest.
We longed for the circadian,
for landmarks and shadows.
Looking for ashes
in the ashes,
we were each learning to loosen
ourselves from our particular stories.
To not need a world
at the end of this one.