I haven’t been out of this valley in 16 days.
There’s a loop that I walk,
it whips away from the ocean.
Two green thighs with
one way in, one way out.
You could die here.
Do you want to die here?

In this theatre of mountains and river,
eucalyptus ushers,
people and their dogs, their fruit punch, their Christmases.
Cloud descends to abate the heat of that
despicable star,
To cool me and my fire.

A leaf ballet, a red-hot fungus.
It’s all there in the creek:
A gift from the cyprus and a bird without a nest.
Coy are glinting in a dam.
It’s true, I may be out of my tree,
but I don’t want to die here.