Each season our inherited land will break

under shovels, labor that may never blister

my palms again. I’m up north,

across state lines,

bogarting a hand-rolled cigar.

A warm dog’s chin

and a notebook on my lap. The TV lighting the page

with breaking news.

Still no reports of fire

near my childhood, where my living family make do,

and where my parents sleep in

homemade graves like every day is a weekend.

Their separate beds so close to igniting. Hell

burns on a dead alfalfa field,

force-fed by evening wind.

The dried-out flowers I left

beside their headstones tempt the flames

like pine needles scattered

under trees. My family spills dirt from wheelbarrows

around their properties,

water drained from Gallinas River hoses

the hot breath creeping through the hills.