We watch the Baltimore dusk detonate to a torn, blunted red.
Pressed for infection, it bloodlets tonight into storming.
Look: the whole night inhales, clots with gauzy clouds,
and the sky hinges forward.
Hands that press down on the back of my neck.
And I sense the vault of the firmament—
arcing wide as a sheet hovered over the bed—
falling, as sheets do. Depleted and slow.
We are lying outside: sunburnt and aching.
Each of us sucks strong gasps of atmosphere,
these wisps of insulate air that graze and abandon our heads,
and still. We get nothing to breathe.