Forest fires have their own weather systems.
Sudden gusts of wind arise. A villa goes up
like a protesting Hinayana monk.
There goes another:
popcorn in a bellows-driven furnace.
Blacksmiths in the Heavens
must be forging a fresh flail
to scourge the divide-and-multiply Southwest
of its afflictions;
but if so they'll have a hard time quenching it.
Los Angeles, Las Vegas bake
like Mayan pottery or cuneiform-inscribed clay tablets,
depleting fossil aquifers and laughing, laughing
long into their loud, electric nights.
