It’s said the desert’s last true palm self-shears,
dropping dead fronds by way of storm. The trees
are glaciation descendants. Know an

ocean’s true name. Know when desert arrived.
Leaf-less and blood welded, my body is
a knowing I cannot fall away from.

Words are my strange molting. I’m pronouncing
my city’s name, its tail curling. Its heart
in the ground. Language is sacred waste. It’s

eaten through short roots. I’m only my mouth’s
storyteller. I tell it of wildfires
two states over. Their archive, in my lung.

Another blaze today, domed into
mimic of overcast. I’m relieved at a
sick sky’s shade. I’m ashamed. The sun sinks red

into twenty prophecies. Some from the
ancestor’s gifts. Some from the radio
host who my mother blasts in the mornings.

He talks about the oldest, final days.
He prays for the sick. He recommends an
immigration lawyer. He says the end

is closer than ever before, closer
than when the oceans withered and chollas
rose from the ashes of coral reefs, closer

than death even. Closer than the Sun’s truest
color. Who finds me to ask if I’ve seen it?
They’re in love with me. They will look away

with me. We’ll take turns discerning between
rain clouds and burdened smoke. We’ll insist on
wondering why we feel sick. We’ll cough up

each other’s names. We’ll find the highest crevice.
We’ll learn to shed what’s burnt. We’ll grow from there.
There, wedged in canyon washes–together.