Lag by Caitriona O'Reilly
Although it is the hottest day of the heatwave, clouds are hauling their sackcloth bellies over volcanoes,                     leaving silvery animal                     or mineral traces behind.   The liquid will never seep far enough down to kill that angry flicker in the earth's throat.                    Seams of live fire                    like snakes or veins are feeling   the surface. The extinct naturalist with his primitive camera could tell the whole story with his burnt bones,                    only they do not speak.                    And this is what I wake up in-   mornings where it rains and I have forgotten my name. What lapses from an eye not quick enough to see                     ivy hooking itself to a tree,                     how the numb foliage explodes?