Horizon catches the cap of our neighbour’s fire

oiling gashes through wood

floorboards spiked with old plimsolls.

The deadliness is in the sunsink

behind the flames:

in things suspended there is so much space

quivering from absence into being.

Strange faith. I tap

your shoulder to make sure, test solid

amongst all the dusk cutting

mineral and the rock that never was.

The heat is more irreverent than we can be.

Lilac clamouring scent falls

a week from the tree after

the swell in the lawn mower

three blooms heat

gut the drains

under absurd rainfall and the lowness

of unbelonging.

All there is like sunset is gasoline

that fuels its burning from air

glistering, and hazy chokes on endings

that once drove to peel back the skyline

and now ignites itself. ■

Words by Eleanor Cousins Brown. Art by Natalie Hytiroglou.