It only takes a moment, and then
her body burns, the skin lifting away
in the shape of leaves—an oak, a willow branch, a maple—
as if she’s known this language for years.
She is screaming, she is speaking
in tongues, she is a woman
lost in dreams. Around here, it is only heat
and burn—and then there is the numbness, too.
A chill. A spider finding its way
through the nerves, the rope.
In case of a fire, the elevator is closed.
The spider takes the stairs, the spine,
like a ladder, looking for a way out:
a vibration, a scream,
the mouth is open.
*
When it comes, the meaning of water
is transformed.
It is not soothing and cool—it burns.
It suffocates.
The blue is a form of darkness
inside the house.
*
Then the house is no longer a house.
*
It is as if she has become a part of it—
the pictures, the clothing, melting—
the water seeming to strip away
what skin she believes is left. More blue.
More numbness.
*
When it comes, the color of the sun and the sky
are yellow, like a crayon, and then she is seeing
the house from the outside: the burn,
the tiles, the shingles, folding,
the main doorway like a mouth,
left open in a scream, bending, twisting,
into what only can be a more painful cry.
The sound that comes to mind reminds her
of wolves, echoing in a canyon,
absent of trees
that were sent away by the heat.