An endless number of trees – maple, oak, redwood, mulberry– send a warning cry when
the world sinks its teeth into theirskin and bone; when plague or blight or blaze come rip-roaring through their paradise.A flare gun shot,
a midnight scream, so that their brothers and sisters may ready themselves
for whatever fever the hungry night brings next.
*
In basements mired with smoke and sweat and countless trembling hands, I send a warning sign;
I brace my heart againstmy ribcage, my tongue shoots up into my skull, eyes
rolling back into the obsidian promise of a nameless high. I tell my brothers and sisters that this is not
who I am, that this ache is the worldbiting right down to the tendon. I releasea silent howl, I shed a strange perfume from the center
of dancefloors, from backrooms,from black-eyed apartments, so that others like me can ready themselves
for the pain our pleasuring earth creates. I’m a flare gun aimed at the sky;I combust with the fever ofrelentless night.
