Issue/Publication:

June 10, 2003

There is an end to shadows.

Burned away by the fireball

drunk like chocolate by the earth

licking its foamy lips with the tides.

Mountain ranges, humming birds,

bricked cities, called to cold

sucked into the edgeless kingdom.

Death is a toe-nail paring,

an oily sack in the weeds.

The beggar on plastic sacks

laughs in her sleep. Waking,

remembers only the punch-line-

something about caring

for the women of Afghanistan.

Flat on its ass, Death begs

nickels, clutches its dog

against a stained coat, hisses

by on fat rubber tires cradling

a cell-phone, fiddles with the radio

tuning out static

Racoons litter the roads--- smashed pumpkins.

We are stealing the fish of the starving

to feed our cats. SUV’s tattooed

with answers I have not requested,

foul the air like cows shitting the creeks

where they drink.

The wind does not move the flag.

The flag does not move in the wind.

The wind does not not move the flag.

The flag does not not move in the wind.

What might amplify

the Jericho trumpets of swans.