Something’s Coming but Never Does

I follow locusts. I think they’re loyal, but it’s a story. In morning’s bleached streets and nights of tungsten glinting, their fretted steel legs ticker the minutes. What do I know, except I need a thing to walk behind. The lot tagged The Devil, red spray paint, two concrete steps. This is where I go when the heat comes, when no one alive can tell me how to make the day move on. She lies there, the bitch, in a bed convex from her weight. Though it’s dusk, I see she is the color of dirt. Though fleas open new roads through her hair, she is asleep. I hear thunder. Some days it rumbles dry, no rain. I’m tired. The air here, it’s like breathing gasoline. I lie down, too. A razor, a latex glove turned inside out. I curl my body close to hers, my lips, nose to her spine. I close my eyes. I want the mites to leave without me, but they don’t.