End Hits

You said simultaneous and I lost track of the sundial. So I said

we belong to the stardust revelation, made by the dark that closes

the lily petal to petal, which is to say this night won’t go on

as long as what goes on forever. The hand that blights the lily

is not the same dark that begins to pull a flower closed at sundown. 

You said simultaneous and I could not fathom a beginning. 

Are we too late in the chronology? Onscreen the voice breaking up

says I don’t know, every talking face I don’t know says—you guessed it. 

I picture the second before every light in the universe goes out, 

the instant before nothing has a chance to draw its last breath. 

Some days you wake up one second before your alarm 

and decades into the rising intonation of your own logical fallacy.

The dot of the question mark hangs like a lost planet. 

What came first, the moth or the light you switch on that kills it?

Prince of Darkness

It’s another gun day, it’s another surreal pill, it’s another

failing mother. It’s another eyes-wide-open midnight,

it’s another empty wallet, it’s another phony archetype.

There is no past we can opt out of, the whole 

caving-in barn the future torches. I’m lucky no water

has risen above my foundation, no dirty dragon’s 

done my brother in, no variant ’s robbed my mother

of her already diminished lung capacity. (The 1980’s 

eternally lifts its pink Bic to her long and vulgar cigarette.)  

I’m lucky it’s unlikely a bullet will ever come for me,

but that doesn’t spare me from knowing the nearest shelter.

I grip my last ripped dollar dug from a jacket pocket.

Here is one more halved tablet, here is one more pixelated detox,

here is one more promise for one more day to pay.