No mesas here, no high desert
blooming with Indian paintbrush
and lupine, no rhino-corrugated hills

or jungle canopy permafrost
ice sheets fiords torrents cataracts
and volcanoes. We want savage tones,

a jaguar, howler monkeys, peacocks,
wheels of fire above, celestial fields slashed by
lightsails and outgassings. We want

more prickly pear and blackberry thorns.
Not a good home for us. We lust to fall
into the lesions of a wailing world.