Carolina
On my uncle’s back porch in July,
small green lizards splay their toes
against white wood, foregoing camouflage.
Heavy air presses the orchid petals
down until they touch the soil.
The palm fronds with their jagged outlines
cut dark against the sky
shake brittle fingers. The humid wind
rises. The hammock rocks, empty, back and forth.
Lightning reaches across
the horizon, stabbing deep into
the sycamores and sassafras,
then retreating back above the treetops.
Inside, my parents watch the evening news.
The fire, it says, is leaping
over six-lane highways, swallowing
houses, eating the trailing leaves
of willow trees and playground swings,
engulfing cars and fishing boats, idling
in deserted driveways, asphalt
bubbling in the heat. Here, the wind chimes
do not sing, but clatter, banging
their thin metal sides together, drowning
out the television’s chatter. And then,
the smell of the swamps, burning.