Fire season. No one is outside at noon. Open the patio doors, wait for crosswinds over the coastal mesa. One virus enters the blood of migratory birds. Transferred by mosquitoes. Pots and saucers on terraces are not permitted. Oldest adobe house goes on sale in the Central Valley. Over a million. During the heat wave’s red flag warning, hot arroyo winds start brushfires, so no one is outside at noon. A child weeps in garnet ruin near broken fuselage.

Equinox: shimmering air, cool stands of eucalyptus.

A car drops into the aqueduct. Bone remains exposed on a fire trail in the hills. One tropical storm is headed to the panhandle, one hurricane to the peninsula. A fisherman tears out a mottled page from an encyclopedia, speaks to the weathered anatomy of salt. Whispering satellites disintegrate in the eastern sky. A falling meteorite burns over a rice field, white magnesium. A woman chokes on the seeds of a bitter gourd.

Prayer for rain, sparse phrases diurnal green.