The sun arrived
wearing a stolen siren
The palm trees
spoke fluent
apocalypse
Freeways coiled
like illuminated serpents
their scales covered
in billboards advertising
new religions
The asphalt
sweated orchids
behind
the liquor stores
and television prophets
We walked west
until the horizon
dissolved into
great golden copulations
of sunlight
and memory
The city performed
the same miracle
on a larger scale
Not in glass
but in pools of gasoline
where angels drowned
trying to remember
their names
The stars hung low
ripe as forbidden fruit
Everyone
was beautiful
and doomed
The night opened
like a black flower
and from its center
a choir of coyotes
sang the ancient
mantra
It turns blood
into music
music into fire
and fire into
terrible knowledge
Los Angeles
is not a city at all
but a dream
the desert
keeps having
about itself