Was it you, who burned a city
At my fingertips?
I’ll blame it
On the rampaging fire wildflowers
Suffocating California.
Either way, I cannot breathe.

What haunts me?
It’s you, isn’t it.
The 12-33, code 12-56,
No help is coming,
“Refusal to comply” morphs to “missing persons,” reporting
The silence.
The screech, the blip
Of a scanner, seeing red,
Like I could hear the pain
Of a few thousand shaken children
Who lost
Their mothers
To a cloud of noxious smoke.

That’s what haunts me.
Isn’t it.
Children, charred and homeless,
Roaming crumbling streets.

That’s what haunts me.