Prairie Burning

There is a man who circles the perimeter with a baby in his arms unmoving. Locusts burn with the silhouettes of saints at dusk. Saints are in the cloud. We are in a dry storm. The man extends his circles pulling the baby through the cactus scrub. Look at his melting trainers in the heat, they aren’t what he asked for. There are black leather skids on the dry stone wall. People in black cloaks run out of the corner of your eye. A pig turns on a spit. The prairie is a terrarium for the blaze but the edge is dry of fire. It is the height of one season, bushes burn. A burnt five-year-old without eyelids turns quick cartwheels through the heat wave under the big pale sky, black and blue.