Summer is lakes and stiff wind. Thin skin
is atmosphere, body and hard science.
After midnight we face into Earth’s orbit,
open all windows, scale back the roof.

We don’t know how big meteors are.
If I threw you, beloved, along the bright
surface of our planet, would your flesh flare
bright enough to reach this campsite, ledged

over the valley? And given
your anemia, could I pick your carnage
from the red fires of other women’s bodies?
You are pumping our water now,

drinking from the tube to empty the line.
Questions crawl out from the lake as we sleep,
hook onto an old buckwheat plant, change
into something colorless, winged.

They are there now, this morning, waiting
for the sun to dry their new bodies, breathing
air into their membranes, almost
ready for atmosphere, fight.