California is on fire.

Symone Knox, “At Noon”

by Robert A. Loustaunau

California is on fire. 

It’d sound prophetic if it weren't so worn. 

Why's it have to be an understatement? 

Why can't it be a metaphor?

The whole coast is in flames. Black smokes, 

at last reach our lungs, cleave all speech beside their Names. 

The coast now brakes along feet – no, knees, – hands: 

Dog-shit white, wash off My Granddad’s dung. 

People don't like it 

when you swap "literally" 

for “figuratively,” but maybe 

this finally will wed the two. 

Just “Say it,” they plead. 

Is that really where we’re at? 

Levels rising, iceberg-flesh schlep off, 

glacial epidermis – some ice is best melted. 

And still Black smokes alight all over, 

to wash out my/your/our throat(s), Hands 

born sooty. 

Soot don’t wash off in the heat. 

Now the smokes will meet the smog 

at docks where glaciers birth the sea. 

The Gold Coast is on fire, 

and despite the very real flames; 

figuratively, believe it or not. 

Have we lived up to its title yet 

–usurped that first Gold Coast 

for its name.