they did a sweep of the area twice more
dusting off the panels as they passed
white porcelain light blinkering
as they bandaged up the remains

\\\

piipiipiipii, bzzzdt.
Tap, taptpatptaptap.
Vrrrrrrrrrr, vrrhhhhhrrr,
ckah-clunk, bzzzdt.

/////

several years later, they unwrapped the hollow
when they forgot how to read the patients form
but found only, etched into the edges of the chasm
walls of maize and paper cranes
and the soft siren call
  of
        the ringing truck

\

so
     skid on the mud
of last winters drought
the windfall is better
the bigger your pouch

or,
   cull your tinnitus'
ambiguous haze
on your conjured
                      posterities
marionette gaze

   mix up a stew
   in a broken egg's shell
   and say your child's
   the same as always you knew
   ( always knew )


and then

wait
watch
  see?

as the frosted lanterns
sing the harbor dry
                                                             /

but who am I to judge
all boarded windows and gusts

i who you where us we,

-
    till just-


follow on down
into that
absent labyrinthine corpse,

crawl on down
  into soft mist and dirt

speak the air


and breathe