Flares

Homeless is who we've become
hearing the desert wind drone.

Sand in our crepey throats, is this the next hard pillow?

On worn hotel sheets beneath a quilted spread
spooning, we lean toward sleep.

Same-name streets guide us to beefy lunches,
salad without the raw onion.

My skin chills in artificial air. I lay my body
on his when afternoon dulls

our fruitless day, his fingers quicken.

Home is where we are, he tongues,
turning me slowly, my scales, my thorns

softening in his hands. We smolder, beacons
fired at early dusk,

the desert blooms.