river writhing

like a blanket rippling in the air

like a corpse trading tissue for jolting parasites

like something delighting in its fathoms 

of bated-breaths

 

cassandra tries to shove

all of troy into her carry-on

and evacuates with only

pruned hands and have-nots

so it goes

 

i ask her if there’s a world

where towns get to die in hospice

and i could have woven my

slack-jawed stumbling limbs through

your intestines one last time

 

on the highway

watching the lights of military vehicles 

disjointing over the guard rail 

like a concrete horizon

lamplights making cathedral arches out of fog

a sign for a once-town wears a crown of jagged lumber

deadfalls haloing our exit to nowhere

signs jutting out of our graveyard for roads

 

the waterline hemmed over my eyes

hoping to hide blooming dots of rot, of decay

inside my emptying lungs

spreading over what used to be mine

gone now

gone now

so it goes

 

our god of yesterday offers little solace

riddles out hollow reminders of normalcy

but there’s no bailing him out 

no consolatory fire 

not when the wick of humanity is still damp

we pray only to luck now

our sole cure for desperation

 

and fortune rides a pale horse

offers us bitter serendipity

we lost the house, now the home

the floorboards and the country

so it goes

 

the sun rises still

clockwork no one’s 

had the decency to unwind yet

an unwanted automaton 

at the end of the world

 

i’m envious of how it slips out of the sky

and knows where it’s going

as i’m misremembering what breathing looks like

misremembering how my bed felt

as i’m tucked into a city that i’m borrowing

while mine is still missing