Tierra del Fuego

Alive like a car,
cold coffee on the dashboard.
It's gonna be a long night, like
Chile in the winter.
A land lit up, the reflection of fire:
Tierra del Fuego en fuego sin agua,
the most volatile place you can
visit, if you never bloom in my head.
You're not a cactus; you need
water, or coffee, and even then
I've never seen a flower kiss the
darkness without cringing.

Dead like a star,
whose spark never quite reaches
my engine. If we stay still, we
travel at chaotic speeds -
all relative, of course - but there is
an order to our route that says,
"keep driving." Into the land of fire,
the long night, the vast and violent barren
blackness that breeds life. One sprout,
dancing in the dirt, kissed by
a narrative that needs two writers.

-02-09-10