With the windows on the side of the house ajar
the toll of cinder   hurls itself from what is commonly; the street
small earth whispers heavy
a recoil from the weight of the humidity.
Whether Brooklyn   or Beirut
there is a call for cloud-song,     mizzle even.

I beg for even now, the jubilation
of sweat exchanged between our hands, it is hot & yet you
have never gone about letting go.
Even now,   I would dig my hand into the dirt
make an oven of my knuckles

& find a seed for us, feed it at bed’s end to the bird
too tired to fly.

What will go first? The precipitation
or the birds?

There is no such thing as a small thought
anymore. This is what I am grateful for & yet
I would prefer to roll an aphorism—
…on the foot of the table   (against the grave of a heat-stroked bird) in the local garden,
like a shield   or a bunker   against when great heat
Becomes—I suppose, greater.