dark as dark — held secret
in TV's hoarse static. lining up and
scuttling across the thoroughfares,
vineyards wrung out of blood,
stomped, crevasse pithless.
willowed and scrunched up, a camouflage
of sorts to masquerade proper terrors.

ripe for Decembertime. magnanimous
assault of buses athwart carts jaded
somewhere between the bend and the fang, shadow upon *** of shadow and
the jiggling of loose change in mired pockets igniting a cadence of dithered flame. later, the lights will cross-fade
into criss-cross. x marks the spot
of burials. content with locks secured
by keys and vice versa. hermetic word
sealed shut in the eyes of the sleepless
children. naiveties suckling our mothers.
songs stifling our fathers. bamboozle
of radio intensifies to raw warfare.

our dangers go to work,
unfurling age. septuagenarian is rare,
and in any common rate, death teems
full in the disappearance of mornings
promising river-flown stories of
how everything was once in our hands.