fires

What is it called when a whole country is on fire?

I burnt my hand on the oven rods today.

A pale crescent connecting my index and thumb,

Where I nurse my pen.

Twelve million acres of fire rage across Australia.

I meter out my world in inches.

Aloe helped. Cool succulent extract,

Its smell is a green I do not recognize.

My robot, my Instagram window to the world

Scrolls on, connected to a disconnect,

And here I am, a part of the contradiction.

If there is no one to blame, we all are.

9/1/2020