The Last Word On Nothing

It was so hot today

that when I stepped from shade into sun

I melted

Birds came and drank me

and butterflies and wasps licked the deltas of

my once-wrists

and they flew me across the sky

and they pooped me down upon the ponderosas

and the cliffs.

It was so hot today

that when I melted

I boiled

and rose as steam

and joined 100 thunderheads galloping east

over the far mountains

It was so hot today

that when I struck the ground as lightning

I became a fire

and devoured a forest

and a prairie

and a dozen houses

and turned the light to copper

and the sun to blood

with my smoke

and when every drop of me was gone

the earth where I had puddled cracked—a dry lakebed

in the shape of my body.

The dust I left

colored the wind

until it scoured me down

to the bone of bedrock

and ran clear again.

Original artwork by the author