Overnight in Joshua Tree

I bled on sheets that weren’t my own
and hid them from my hostess,
not knowing what to say or do
to cover my faux pas.

She was a performance artist
who liked to burn things up
while local townsfolk stood around;
the smoke became applause.

I later learned
her house burned down,
an act of jealous arson
by the married lover’s wife,
(those who play with fire and all that.)

Such relief, you cannot know,
the calcination of my stains,
particulate floating above the smoke
into the desert night
and then, at last, to nothing.