Self-Portrait with Wildfire Ash

Here we are in the center
of summer, the middle of alarm,

below a sky gone sepia
as fires char and turn skeletal

anything they consume, be it forests, 
be it homes, be it abandoned cars

on a stretch of road made gauzy by smoke 
the wind raises, then ferries off.

Ash arrives where I reside, stippling. 
Ash arrives and I follow some specks

tumbling slow and diagonal inside
a channel of light. They glitter like static

and I refuse to call it beauty, or admit 
my methods for pushing away dread

are problematic, not yet, be it 
Xanax or bourbon, be it wrapping

scarves of weedsmoke around my head.
If you also notice the planet burns

more each year, burns and floods and slants 
toward ruin, you too might believe

it is through with us. Or maybe I’m just 
habitually focused on decline,

the fall within anything that is momentarily 
upright. What should I blame

but my eyes for listening, my ears 
for touching the sound of trees

going up, despite being nowhere
near their roaring. Ash arrives and quietly

dusts the world, dusts and sounds
its numerous bells, though it’s hardly heard.

Read more from Issue 23.1.