The last thing he saw was the joy in her eyes.
Back home the flowers have wilted and the balloon,
twisting slowly in the now-stale air,
sinks lower and lower to the ground.
I hire the police that protect my home from the hordes
that would tax me: I need nothing from the State, and so
give nothing to the State.
Peel back my eyes
and touch the still-healing wound
oozing cerebral fluid from the Big Bang.
It’s in this blind space of raw pain
I often dwell.
“How does one with no boots
pull himself up by his bootstraps?”
“Why teach someone to fish
then deny them access to the lake?”
I just read that the virus is mutating, anti-vaxxers are joining other unsavory elements to protest public health measures, the president doesn’t see the need for mass testing but is now getting tested daily…
I want to rest on the shore
until the urchins break skin
and the salt seeps in.
I notice my parents’ aging as I do my own:
Not at all, then in a photo, all at once.
I’ve been hearing Save the Rainforest
since I was small enough to sleep
in the safety of my parent’s bed
or snuggled with stuffed animals—
pandas, giraffes, monkeys, frogs;
A rock skips across the sky,
leaves concentric circles of cloud
to wonder at.
It doesn’t matter who lit the flame
that burned the Reichstag down,
only that it burned and so few
considered what cremation means
to those who long for proper burial.