As heat moves through like its own animal
whose evening pulse is headlights and the reply
of lit cats’ eyes. As the amber of Freon
streaked my ceiling and the ceiling
begins to cave, I’ve had
no AC for days. I’ve had knuckles
unfold from the oleanders, try to lock
with mine. They’re boiled
and hazy in their summer whites—
why I remember
the boy from down the street who often begged
to suck my eyeball. My pupil
rolled under his tongue, the one
whose scent was clove smoke and a soft brie,
winging after a blinding light.
I must’ve singed the buds
in his tongue to desert thistles—
left a taste like a saint’s
charred footprint. As you recede,
memory, a warning: my eye
might make something calcify, a stone
through your sleep, shorn dog
so nude it’s another
nocturnal shiver. As sweat
stings my eye, you’ll recall the taste,
and the blue cacti,
stoppered with blooms,
will seize like blown crepe.