Fever Sparks

Infamous to the point of villainy
The tectonic shifts of terrible lungs
Rack and rattle spinal vertebrae
As willow-bough arms
Lacking any color
Cradle porcelain ribs
Like a teakettle

Only the placement of trembling palms betrays her:
One curls over her mouth
And catches alizarin petals
Before they drop from her tongue
While the other catches and knots
Trembling
In her lap
Like a bird

Pearls run down her face as the heat grows
Flames stoked by rasping bellows
Fever sparks trickle from her salt-washed eyes
Biting and burning her face
And pool in the wings of her collarbone
Like a river