your eyes
like smoked glass,
your skin tight
and jaundiced,
your mind a meadow
on fire.

the rivers now are of gasoline
cutting down through those
mountains of steel we left behind.

at night the sun never seems to set
anymore.
it never seems to rise, either.
and this world can hardly get to
sleep in this perpetual half-light.

the trees howl at the holes in the sky
vacated by the moon and stars.
when it gets like this your heart explodes.

you squeeze the air with all you have,
the air shudders a few millimeters.
with nothing to hold onto
and nothing to hold it with.
the bones drop from your hand,

one by one by one by one.

they came in off
the deserts
blind from the sand
and wind

baying at the
western moon
well past any
decency at
such an hour

frothed by mouth
and desperate paws
clawed your door
to splinters

you burned
your home down
in the nadir
at dawn

just to try
and keep them
without

unable to hold
out or on
with your blood
igniting in your veins

these actions devoid
of empathy
and too
lacking in
malicious intent

they retreated
to the skirting
just beyond the
encircling venal light

there you were
hoping that the
sun would rise

before the
ashes inhaled
the palling light