It's a cloud, not an erector set.

It's a cloud,

not an erector set.

all of it:

The dust of comets flaming in the sunset,

the ball of plutonium cradled in the core

of a warhead deep below the Dakota prairie.

It's the fuzzy edges of a moment:

a tiny breeze across my neck

while I sat in the shrunken shade

of blazing noon at Furnace Creek

and then I tried to calculate

equivalents between Celsius

and Fahrenheit, but

the stubbornness

of old phone numbers,

kilometers, and recipes insisted

-whispered:

What's the boiling point of water?

there's a clue........

if i could just grab it.

Then that family from Iowa walked by

slurping cups of syrupy ice.

All sunburned pink and sweaty,

tented in t-shirts that proclaimed

Taxed Enough Already!

I was in this cloud of summer memories,

the crows and creeks,

digging into sandbanks with a spoon.

Or sprawled beneath a willow

beside a black-rocked alpine stream

reading Orwell for the first time.

Or remembering the sweet shock

of cherry cider on the tongue

from that roadside shack

on the road up to Sonoma.

The stumps of eucalyptus

along the road remain

reminding me of that time

in second grade

when a chain-sawed oak

in the school yard refused to fall.

It's branches were entangled in it's neighbors

and we stood there, speculating

is that what suspended animation is?

and decided that must be it, for sure.

the next day it was gone.

Water boils at hundred degrees Celsius

or two hundred twelve degrees Fahrenheit.

Freezes at zero Celsius or thirty two Fahrenheit.

So each degree of Celsius is equivalent

to one point eight of Fahrenheit plus thirty two….

forget about it. What I know is

If you take half a dozen dried chilies

cover them with boiling water

let them steep for twenty minutes,

you have the beginning of lovely mole.