I. Factory Fire

The men walked past me
I turned around and followed

The scarred one gathered wood
The tall one lit the fire

The other one pulled up his shirt and showed me where they’d found the tumor —
“It’s right here”

and their fire factory poured out a scarlet twilight
It was like a sunburn slapping its own face

and the men pointed me away but I didn’t away

I caught a frog and I named it Jesus
I caught a snake and let it go
Certain griefs winnowed away
and the men drunk-danced
their hands punched against some darknesses

The tall one caught a squirrel
The scarred one named it Love
and the other one named it Loss

II. Scarlet

City dead, apartments empty,
everyone you know gone for the summer.
After visiting the new panda at the
zoo you’ll begin your book 
and you’re going to title your book
Fuck You Fuck Face and Fuck You Fuck Face
will tell the story of that one particular autumn
when you found someone to love
but they didn’t want to love you back
and every morning at dawn you’ll
make coffee and tiptoe into a corner of your mind
like a Dark Age monk entering a dank medieval library
to copy out ancient text until the fingers crack off,
and twilight (it will be horrible and a glory)
will call every Fuck Face author down to its
street of banjos and prophets
and a scarlet palmist will peel
open the reluctant fists.