Names of Smoke
by
Radiance Angelina Petro

Newly hatched robins wake up with dew
on their prehistoric faces. Poppies have opened
their windows letting loose their tiny, round seeds.

The rectangle becomes the triangle, becomes
the circle. There’s a hawk-headed god in the woods
returning childhood to the eyes of old men.

Rain-varnished evening trees. What lives
in their dream-like minds? The reappearances
of snakes bring joy.

The aloneness of the alone, like lungs collecting
and distributing breath, changes everyone’s name
into smoke.