The horizon hung coated with evaporated sea salt,
a buttery rosewood sun dipped like quicksand
until it dissolved. Alka-Seltzer into foamy crests
atop the antique sea beneath

The sunset fell like a pinball until it reached a place to rest
miles below. It landed with a deep bellowing bass
felt in the spines of every being with a pulse

Until the water rose in braided mounds, navy and silver,
cracking heavy splattered warnings in the air like
chalk-dust on a clean blackboard or oily fingerprints
on crystal chandeliers, as if to say tomorrow.

When tomorrow came, Earth held its breath
as if bandaged tightly, protected in a giant net.
And although every organism capable of movement was in motion,
every set of eyes could not help but stick to the sight
of a shifting universe.

In a single blink, the whistling knot of dust and rock
split the sky wide open before cracking fiery into the Gulf.
Ripped open at the seams, the bright became black

And that was how it would stay as pupils constricted for the last time,
no one knew whether the dark was from the dense, leaking ashes
or from millions of scrambling feet on the dusty ground
running in neither direction, in every direction,
although everyone knew by now there was no more direction.

As it goes, their existence would become no more than a theory.
Their first footprints in the dewy clay moss
would become no more than a hunch,
and all anybody really says is that nobody really knows.