Regarding the wildfire smoke covering the sky that originated 1,000 miles away

I am not going to write you
pretty—all amber
and topaz in the morning light, tomato suns
sinking at the end
of days. No, I refuse. Give me

your silver candle snuff
swirl, your campfire clutch
on fleece and keratin, the serotinous cones combusting
in slow motion, the phoenix
flare ecosystem, I’ll take it.

Keep your smoke signal
of cataclysm, the continental cataract,
claustrophobic haze at every
periphery. Don’t

give me that grief. I think of
my sister and her great fear:
young and convinced
the house would burn
around us in the night; tiptoeing
dark hallways, fingertips out, scoping
for heat, eyes willing
away sparks at the windowsill, throat clogged
with phantom
fumes, barefoot oracle—

I’ll be heavy-footed. My skull
is too choked
for delicacy. It’s all I can
do to keep
from suffocating, to curl
down and behold the tomato
on the vine held up
with drum sticks and duct tape, splayed
and growing like anything might—
the red-ripe and ready are gold-flecked
and glorious, metallic-splattered
embers burning.