Closing the car door behind me,
I walked through an intense sunset
toward Radio Shack, a block away.
The sky's on fire!
, I thought,
believing I might have found
the first line of a poem.
A moment later I realized
that a million people think
those exact words every night.
What can I think, I wondered,
that a million people
don't
think every night?
'The sky burned to ash! '
'But it didn't! ' a part of me shouted.
That part of me is now bound
and gagged in the back of my car.
Here's the poem that was born:
The sky burned to ash,
leaving a jewel of lapis lazuli
that I wear today
in the setting
of my ring.