Lava

Some days aren't yours at all
I wake late, move late, sit still, a brain of treacle, sometimes we think we need a rest but when we get it, all the demons wake up and stretch their limbs, giggle in the margins. I try to wait them out, but how persistent they are, how gleeful. Roving gangs of civil rights activist bikers ride down the avenue, ringing bells and yelling into the night. The less oppressed crowd into outdoor bars and breathe down each other's necks like they can afford health insurance, how society crystallizes in chaos. He calls me from the late evening across the ocean, midnight twilight still washed in peaches, that magical birdsong that lingers through midsummer nights near the Arctic circle, he says reading your news is like watching a country implode and we wonder when we'll see each other again. I refresh the apartment listings. The dog falls asleep in the crook of my arm. Rogue fireworks rumble through the night.
They come in all quiet
sweep up.

And then they leave.