Hot Plate

( a spill and scrub )

While early morning had you
greet me from the base of a
volcano, the air thick with
 
last night’s constant rainfall, in
the land of a string of pearls
disgorged by the sea and worn
 
down by recycled tempests;
the age-old trade-off of a
paradise, pursued and found

where even the birds are lost,
unseen and huddled, as they
catch up on their sleep, reclaimed.

And the first light of day, those
thousands of miles away, is
hard pressed to rear its flame from

such a drenching, a deluge —
a tirade of paper fans,
of mai tai in coconuts.

I eschew the pilot light
of a composition, on
the move, placing it on a

hot plate by my elbow bent,
just as your crackl’d voice crawls
into my canals, lent, to

leave its larvae for later,
to uncurl and feast upon
my brain - so ravenously.