with less certainty is something
I never prepared to lose

most of my life mangos & limes
arrived bright from Mexico

out of season—rot on counter—
we’re trying not to waste now

everything grown precious
each morning now, I notice

the sky a little different
yesterday & tomorrow’s grey

blind white, rain intermittent
blue last evening, I knelt

beneath our Japanese maple
its ten thousand hands trembled

above me in red blessing,
my fingers pulled at dark soil,

left white roots exposed,
dying in piles, one evening,

one tree’s liquescent body
like august’s flames & my family

needs more water than falls from
summer’s unrelenting dry

earth heaves beneath human desire.
Normal never sustainable—

a complex—lightning strikes
and fire, fire, fire.