First Wildfire in California

Eight miles away from me, the grass is burning.
Brushfire started yesterday—the news says

likely kindled from some tossed cigarette,
the lips it touched idling in traffic.

Afternoons on the 405 make me want to smoke, too,
but god—today five thousand acres burned

to tinder & ash. The news keeps saying
uncontained—I keep thinking it’s funny

how a word that sounds like freedom
becomes a snake

let loose in the house,
dangerous. The sky is heavy now

with smoke I thought was clouds, & the red sun
looks like Mars or a sulfur-tipped match.

It’s silly, but all I wanted
was to spend the day by the pool,

with a man I love & pretend I don’t—
& we did sit there, on lounge chairs, we spoke

of all the unimportant things—but around us
the air felt too cool for August

because of the smoke, & we kept looking up
at the stunning sky, the angry sun,

& I kept wondering how close we were
to that, or to some other kind of destruction.