similar status to a conquered people's

The neighbor's garage was burning down
and it sent up a fat smoke ring. When I
looked up above me, the center was the
sun. The smoke eye would follow me
throughout the county, across the southern
border, edges of the dunes and Chocolate
Mountains; the hazing red would cause me
acne, crack and decay close relationships,
beaches turned to black sludge, and the
footprints led everywhere you could go
there in the bowl and back again and again.


Illyn