My cold Earth, in fear
—
mother of all gods.

And we pray, we beg,
and then we fall

onto the emaciated asphalt.

No work of flouting hands,

Nothing to save, or to be saved

In these circumstances.

My dreams, fragile

As an early March bloom,

Frozen in the escalation of the doomed return

Of far worse times.

And then we reverse the cloak,

in surreptitious fashion eat the leftover air.

There is no more home
—
only the eternal return:

chimney’s smoke,

family’s lovely oak.