They tell me that the March rains
Bring summer to a close.
Now people can picnic without checking the weather forecast.
The mornings are brisker;
No more the humid embrace of the rising mists,
Only the dawn air nipping at my skin.
I am exposed, uncovered,
Like waking up in an empty bed
Recently vacated.

The day I swallowed the sun,
I bled vermilion.
There was no way to stanch the plasmic haemorrhage
Of light trying to escape.
My limbs were glowing charcoal,
My skin, flaking ash.
Yet my singed heart continued beating,
As my lungs became potash.

I come to tell you that we survive incineration.
Later, picking through the cinders,
We can even delight in soot,
And make of it new ink.

I have been down this path before.
The first time was because I had seen you standing on the horizon.
There was no path then, save for the unpaved wild expanse between us
Just waiting to be trampled.
I discovered afterwards that desire defies topography.
That we are rivulets of water obeying gravity’s orders, carving canyons through bedrock.
I have often wondered whether cartographers change the land that they study.
Perhaps we are cartographers who do not realise
That to search for geography is to map our own longing.