Warning

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.