Baptism by Fire
Certain sunsets imply a painter
with their cavalries of orange and red, pink
and purple, with their storm clouds like dark smoke
rising in exclamation from a city
afire after the looting has begun.
Certain sunsets highlight the freckle
archipelago trailing down your thigh.
My fingers are lazy canoes tracing
eights in the coming twilight, paddling round,
shore to shore, along the rippling shoals,
circling the bloom of Cherry Angioma
Island. The flames are wet in certain sunsets
and heat sizzles as the day’s extinguished.
Some baptize by water, others by flame.