Brush Fire

A poem about what can be ignored and what can not

There came a day when you returned — 
	stretched thin and somehow feathered
	so I offered water. 

palenecked vultures bent their greasy wings,
single-minded aerials from oak 
to oak, grazing wild mustard 
seeded by the wind,
some small peril 
playing out 
beneath — 

you came to me, 
	your pulpy gooseflesh follicles,
		your ferrofluid forearms, 

and pushed 				my chin

		to see the swallows 

gliding up 				and out 

I watched the iron nets
under your skin —

hanging from those faint blue bars, I prayed
the fire in that field might never spread.