Beginning Monday, April 19 we’re bringing you poetry from Michael Mirolla’s newest collection At the End of the World, with a special interview scheduled for Friday April 23^rd at 7 p.m. We hope you enjoy it.

 

 

 

 

 

August 30, 2010: 2:30 pm

For Cleo at last

 

I.

 

This cavern blazes forth its sickly sun,

daring me to seek blindness. An eyelid

intervenes. The children herd acorns,

circle Pan-like the mother oak. A shadow

limps along in three-legged defiance, only

to evaporate with the blow dryer wind.

 

Somewhere, a syringe slips beneath soft fur

and hooks itself to the nearest vein.

 

Does the image reverse for an instant

before that last blink? White shells … crystalline

shells … black shells … caught in the mirage between

river and sea … swamp and sky. The tears dry

on the banks of a salty afternoon,

an ache rising with the gaunt mosquitoes.

 

The liquid flows towards a still beating heart,

marks the tick-tock as it runs out of time.

 

In the gunslinger afternoon, children

seek shade beneath a monkey-bar world.

They slide their fingers into the sand’s groin,

feel the quick ebb of a current that no

serendipity can touch. White shells …

black shells … empty shells … rocking ever so …

gently.

 

Calm waters wash over a still body,

one more husk amid the foamy debris.

 

II.

 

… a river into the sea … a room with a river into the sea …

sweeping the empty shells … sweeping the white empty shells

… white crystalline empty shells … the waters of the river flow-

ing into the waters of the sea … bog to salt … the pine tree that

leans into the wind stripped bare … stripped raw on the salt

side … squish of the sand … waving the green fronds … sparse

hairs on the head of a giant … the bald one … one galaxy

flowing into the other … the liquid the liquid the liquid stone

… the stone liquid … red wine drinking red wine … syringe-

straight … let us drink … let us toast …

 

III.

 

Say something. Anything. Please.