12-09-2017, 04:14 AM
Pleading With an Ibid's Hem
The dream began as they often do:
familiar dread, unfamiliar place—
children with the names I gave them,
ages flouting linear time.
Men stood in rows like solemn corn—
a marching band missing a routine and music—
with Paul Ryan's slicked black All-American hair,
matching navy blue fitted suits,
and placid eyes that followed
the golden bullet gleaming overhead.
Their eyes were drawn in time
along its line through the sky,
tuning to the mastery of a new conductor,
mouths slung open the way they slack
when the mind abandons consciousness.
There was no warning but mine,
or sign from Yahweh—
no rainbow or prepared ark.
They never looked down or to the side,
so they didn't see us wash away.
The dream began as they often do:
familiar dread, unfamiliar place—
children with the names I gave them,
ages flouting linear time.
Men stood in rows like solemn corn—
a marching band missing a routine and music—
with Paul Ryan's slicked black All-American hair,
matching navy blue fitted suits,
and placid eyes that followed
the golden bullet gleaming overhead.
Their eyes were drawn in time
along its line through the sky,
tuning to the mastery of a new conductor,
mouths slung open the way they slack
when the mind abandons consciousness.
There was no warning but mine,
or sign from Yahweh—
no rainbow or prepared ark.
They never looked down or to the side,
so they didn't see us wash away.

