No mesas here, no high desert

blooming with Indian paintbrush

and lupine, no rhino-corrugated hills

or jungle canopy permafrost

ice sheets fiords torrents cataracts

and volcanoes. We want savage tones,

a jaguar, howler monkeys, peacocks,

wheels of fire above, celestial fields slashed by

lightsails and outgassings. We want

more prickly pear and blackberry thorns.

Not a good home for us. We lust to fall

into the lesions of a wailing world.