It is hard.

This bed of dense cellulose,

flaked

with red scars.

How glorious!

To look down,

at your own three fingers

as they falter.

Sunlight can no longer satiate their famine.

A thousand latent veins

surface

and weave into meshes,

Battle: Red vs. Green

(the winner declared ante bellum,

accepted,

history.)

So your skin shrivels up,

crimson chokes you,

crawls in, tugs

at your arms, your heart.

Now you are a flame.

“I am radiant!”

some last thoughts?

etched on the stomates of your flesh.

As you exhale and let go, freefalling

in forty degrees cold

Sweet darling landing on the grass, you take away

a tropical girl’s breathe.

She freezes

Her eyes see New England heaven.