Air sets fire to lungs, a burning blazes bodies alive. Snapping, flickering, an unnamed anxious intent slowly, slowly ashes flesh,

yet we’re soothed by tamed air.

A voice, cradled breath, sings of more than life. While days flake off, songs etch into dead earth the story of impermanent things—Gilded lives form symbols meant eternal. Language, a storied serpent never-ending, drags along idol corpses resurrected by tangled, fated eyes: a quiet kiss.