Something’s Coming but Never Does

I follow locusts. I think they’re loyal, but it’s a story.

In morning’s bleached streets and nights

of tungsten glinting, their fretted steel legs

ticker the minutes. What do I know, except I need

a thing to walk behind. The lot tagged The Devil,

red spray paint, two concrete steps. This is where I go

when the heat comes, when no one alive can tell me

how to make the day move on. She lies there, the bitch,

in a bed convex from her weight. Though it’s dusk,

I see she is the color of dirt. Though fleas open

new roads through her hair, she is asleep. I hear thunder.

Some days it rumbles dry, no rain. I’m tired. The air here,

it’s like breathing gasoline. I lie down, too. A razor,

a latex glove turned inside out. I curl my body close

to hers, my lips, nose to her spine. I close my eyes.

I want the mites to leave without me, but they don’t.