Summer Fires

Smoke from burning mulch
spread from Fillmore and Twenty-second Avenue
across the city, with a smell
that entered the house through cooler vents
and stepping outside
we found air the colour
of ash. The neighbours

came out to look, licking the taste of endtimes
from their lips. Sometimes
tires catch fire and a black stench
comes to remind us it’s hot, it’s summer,
it’s Phoenix, and not even
technology can save us. Every year a spark

turns apocalyptic, becoming a preview
of a scene to come
in which the heat takes command,
the exits are sealed, and we’re gathered
on the street comparing thermometers

while the power slowly fails
in our air-conditioned hearts.




David Chorlton has lived in Phoenix since 1978. Born in Austria, he grew up in Manchester, close to rain and the northern English industrial zone, and spent most of the 1970s in Vienna. His publications include The Lost River from Rain Mountain Press, and two Slipstream chapbook competition winners. As much as he loves the Southwest, he has strong memories of Vienna, and that city is the setting for his first work of fiction: The Taste of Fog, from Rain Mountain Press. The Devil’s Sonata, from FutureCycle Press, is his newest collection of poetry.