Pure Silence

Pure silence is an abandoned theater,

echoing with the screams 

of a grindhouse film

nobody remembers.

Illusion of Progress

After Larry Levis’s “Airplanes”

I grab a torch and go

burn hay bales to a pile,

and stare at the glowing remains

until cloves grow from the ashes.

This never happens.

I turn twenty-seven somewhere,

knees on asphalt, praying

for the field in front of me

to harvest its crop

of three-story colonials.

Why the Wildflowers Bloom

Across the drought-dried field, vultures perched

on hay bales, wings twitching with anticipation

as a road-trapped body took its last breath.

The wake was swift. Muscles to guts,

a legacy was devoured in mere hours.

As the final vestiges of life fluttered away

in matted tufts, blood trickled between veins

of concrete and pooled beneath a roadside sprout.

We’re here now, ignorant of the past,

watching a pack of coneflowers

bloom in unison. Their petals bowing

to the pavement, a gorgeous memorial

for everything we’ll never know.