I take a step back, pivoting on my right foot

to remember behind me a clearing in the trees

by the old apartment complex

where dirt raked over by lifetimes of weary

American walkabouts 

snakes down hawk-eyed, single-minded

toward the old muddy river.

One might brush aside broken branches 

blocking the way like so many nails and thorns

but I know the way.

At the bank where acid rain and sewage 

can lick the dying summer dandelions

I try to cash a check for one epiphany 

before it starts to rain more violently.

A suitcase probably designed to hold a laptop

lies abandoned by a crushed beer can and

a newspaper clipping filled with prophesies

written to a dying world about a world soon to be dead.

I look inside but no glint of metal shines back

at unsuspecting hopeful children eyes.

Turned over with a fallen stick 

lying in a field of blood nearby

a giant slug is stuck to the back of 

the faded leather bag dropped for

God-knows-what-reason.

A snake slithers away back up the trail,

I hear a hawk screech into the gray sky,

and I swat a spider hanging from 

the nearest tree almost alive in the sunset

bearing the weight of the world.