August 23, 2016How People End
up married or not, or dead
or cramped in a crisis
of denouement: an atomic
shrill of insight, landing
post-crisis, limp
and late, after the ash.
Grilled into sight, landing
like denouement’s atomic.
Late fingers of ash
brush to formation: a peacock
of denouement. Atomic
as raised blue veins
of rush, as pea-cocked
as foolish feathers, empty.
If raised blue veins are
quills, are bones of no weight,
foolish as feathered blood, emptied
for space—how’s the crush
from quills, bones, the weight
of the terrible, released?
Out for space, we squeeze
our own reckless organs.
Terrible, released
by freedom, we skirt a ruined sky.
Our organs play
the push towards
away, the lewd sky
lumbering past. Elephants
keen the push
on disaster. While we
lumber past, our
massive, veined ears flap.
Disaster, what’s
invented for us: a show of air?
Massive, veined ears flap
applause. Worship
invention, a show of air,
a dry dust dropping
to applause. Our denouement?
It’s married or not, and dead.
from Poets Respond