Woke up to End
of Days, the sun

an angry ember
in an asbestos sky,

the only thing
not on fire,

and still death
to breathe–

woke up to a burning
throat, eyes wet

but even that
moisture went–

woke up to a sunset
at dawn, a dead day,

smoke following us
as far as we could flee,

South, West, the sky
never got right–

that sick yellow hue
of a blister–

we kept all the windows
shut and it didn’t matter,

smoke got in,
permeated our clothes,

hung like a shroud
over unseen mountains,

the tinderbox trees,
the ashen disasters.