"The eye is burning, forms are burning, eye-consciousness is burning" -The Buddha
"Some say in ice." -Frost
Everything is burning: the ends of our cigarettes,
the charcoal-colored robins, the freckled sunlight
splotched and split like eggshell on the lawn.
Burning: the flamed hush of western pinks,
voices like wildfires in the city's under-story-
lawn mowers, buzz saws, cars at the far edge
of the ear's periphery. Burning: the top halves
of other houses, fenced in for the eye, the birch
shadows like twisting runes, the burning glow
of Bradford pears sparked early like suburban stars.
Or melting: the ice cubes in our drink like stars,
the shade by the clothesline, the heel-print moon
in the sand-colored sky. Melting: box fan clicking
in the window, sentence of cloud, the cold ring
on the cocktail napkin. Melting: sky of stillness,
birdsong, dog-bark, ceaseless thrum of traffic.
