When the bright light happened
The clocks stopped and the power was out in the town was lit by rivers of candelabras
We knew it was getting bad when the water reached the elevated trains and we couldn’t leave the city
The empty platforms dead and nailed to the water like catacombs strewn with suitcases being eaten by the ever-ash
irrelevant photographs scattered like flower petals after a rainstorm covered in white
God, it was so beautiful
Like a dead child frozen in a snowstorm
The most beautiful thing I ever saw never meant to be seen, glory only saved for divine eyes now given to me as a gift
Iron split like matchsticks
Heads attached to corpses like burning torches
Then the sky was illuminated with the love
The wounded ground opened
The inferno would burn for three hundred years fed by rivers of lead and arsenic
We spent 17 days off track wandering deep in the sky canyons of doom
I held your hand before death reached it
Before the soft death could overwhelm you
And your eyes like the eyes of the sun gone dim in the stolid atmosphere
I held your rivercold hands and washed you in the ash in the firelight
I read to you and held you tight
I could not let you go but you did before I knew
I would never forgive you for dying