After the old man fell
and broke his hip working in the garden
the shrubs next door grew free,

Each evening now the ash blue flame
swept from my fingertips
climbing its gas ladder up the flue

It was fever that made the world
burn last summer, that afternoon
when I lay watching the sun pour

Look how the snow drifts
       flare on the Soracte’s slopes
—there, straining branches

Everyone else slept and we
were skinny-dipping in my mother’s pool
when the moon rose and birds