Northern California fire season

 

 

a thirst deep, no longer sated
like brush growing brown
on hillsides, waits silently
for rain that won’t come

a burning heat smolders
struggling to melt
you back to me,
memories of you
tremble in waves around me
with ghostly images of your long fingers
barely brushing a kiss onto my bare skin

now is the cosmic change we've

failed to stop,
no more moisture
to nourish the hills
to feed our intimacies
our thirst festers, consuming us
new growth dies, passions and trees wilt
I lay on a hillside
waiting with the scrub
for what will never return

 

 

 

© Sharon Lopez Mooney, “Northern California fire season”, in Tipton Poetry Journal, Issue #53, ed. Barry Harris, Brick Street Poetry Inc., Zionsville, Indiana, USA, August 2022, https://issuu.com/tiptonpoetryjournal/docs/tpj53