How much is receding from you, and how much is rushing back—
Frenzied feet, riots of dust, city’s clamor, TNT.
Unceasing mourning, untiring hope and expectation
bodies and faces recklessly spent,
running out irresponsibly, now weary, asleep
trembling like tipped stamens, like eyelashes.
The once-loved slowly peel off, layer after layer
Skin, exfoliated, gone in the wind—irretrievable
Old apartments charred, flames burning bright,
fireworks cascading, crowds fleeing,
among them countless faces scattering,
blurred.
The black hole behind you still breathes its chill,
rolling inward. The words reach you from an ancient time
that never was, spoken at the dead of night.
Cool water, living water, crawls over your feet
and past—
disquieting, repulsive, yet familiar,
it terrifies, it intoxicates, it makes you ashamed.
Tears or laughter, water or fire.
At last, you see this interval, infinitely stretched wide,
and the unspoken peril contained within.
Past and future, captured by either, would be dangerous.
Acceleration maddens, fangs bared.
They come to You.
Unstoppable—it cannot be stopped,
it must not be stopped, because falling
is equally dangerous.
Worlds spinning.
They are oxidizing, endlessly oxidizing—
sulfur dioxide, sulfur trioxide, sulfur oxide
rusting, corroding, flaring, sedimentating
death’s layered progression,
and its slow accumulation.
A mayfly between the stones.
What is dying is not yet dead.
What is coming has not yet come.
