We could become term papers, leaflets, wedding invitations,

lanterns, white roses, a tickertape parade

this desert we travel is vast     stained with beauty

that consumes and then loses

“Minutes teach the hour to walk,

then the hour walks away.”

I don’t want to be so tight-hearted,

but cannot watch closely a paper fortune teller

with every square reading disaster.

Baltimore shimmers in the record heat. I shiver

at the new smells baked out of the harbor

With blue-wrapped hands,

they’ll trace her esophagus and stomach

all barnacled with tumors.