1. Sea Grape

Loose leaf:
golden
fire-streams

branching into bayous
of darker flame,
breaking apart

near the rim
to finer, finer veins:
unnavigable Amazonia

in the shape of a heart
—a real heart, dear,
not the idealized kind,

and thus all throb
and trouble, and fallen
as if to remind us

we're fire at the core,
various heats,
though everything

mottles,
at this latitude:
fruit and flower

and once-pink
porch columns,
even the puddle

between the bakery
and Kingdom Hall
giving up thunderhead