He stabs the east each
night at 7:45.
A smattering of matters flee the
bright assault.
A sickle moon leaks fire opal light on the beleaguered
night.
Mars limns the x-ray grin beneath the
skin.
Friends feel pulled
toward the red death glow.
The wolf of lupus snares young women in
menses
in
the teeth of war.
Village mothers
fall like autumn fruits in mini-marts and desert
fields, they
twitch as
their orphans cry, scattered
on the ground, ripe detritus of
mars' reign.
Punjabi warriors train their frenzied
boys with
sharpened sticks— their golden eyes
like falcons fierce claws
and feathered epic crests.
Mushroom clouds bloom in moist dark-blood-dark mulch
when Mars pokes his sharp stick in the sky's eye
even
Himalayan peaks melt in his hot gaze.
We know when Mars recedes:
peace laps the tips of waves smooth
as moon-spun silver.
The dead rest easy, gibbering shades in the abyss of
space
still/pulse again
in time with star-beat-heart.
Those boys’ spears till the fertile
fallen mothers where they lay
at ease in
quiescent fields and stores. Apocalypse
averted.
Copyright © 2006, Kevin C. Little, Jr.
Image Credit: Copyright © 2003, Damon Taylor, some
rights reserved
Kevin Little
is the poetic great-grandchild of Theodore Roethke. He lives in tropical
Art Deco splendor in Sacramento, California with his partner, Andrew,
a Papillon named Louis Vuitton and two Bengal cats. He supports his poetry
habit by teaching high school English and choreographing obscure musicals.
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