With just a tap of my finger
a cascade of images
tumbles from the cloud
like thunderbolts.
A cold wind flays
the skin from your bones
screaming down the Plains
like a water cannon.
- I watched sullen, tearful, weeks ago as the map of the Midwest turned red on my phone like a blood stain or a shadow darkening towards the setting sun.
The black-grass sea is
machined to a rusty channel
and a gross torrent of oil
clogs the turbid waters. Our
blood no longer infused
with arterial fire and arboreal
wending is thick, dirty,
viscous and foul.
- I woke in the night to check the results. The blue screen light like a thin slice of moon in the shadow dark of my bed. I read Du Fu on my phone:
"blossoms clotted there with swollen dark."
(Death, not water, is the universal solvent now).