At the end of August, swallows make their dip and turn
in the descending wind, cross the lake’s
turbid water, where a killer, both drunk and aroused
(the one she met on a dating app),
dumped her on the side of the road, poured kerosene
on her half-naked body, lit it on fire.
And didn’t the white grass shiver on the muggy banks
where a rodeo town was flooded once
to build a dam and where flocks of sheep were shot
and heads of cattle slaughtered …
She was a young mother, this one who dreamed
of opening a beauty shop, of owning
her own home, affording vacations with her daughter;
and didn’t she think he was handsome,
this handyman called Victor, who told her she was pretty,
a real knockout, but what was said
that day that fell into night– was it liquor, coke or grass,
and did she pass out, or was she stabbed
raped, choked, before the flames exploded, sparked
the canyons, split the oaks from pines,
merged with the lightning fire that struck the day before,
tore the landscape upside down, sped
toward ranches, stripped each memory one by one,
as her charred flesh stayed unrecognized
for months and months until an angel pendant buried
in fall’s debris shouted out her name…
