Member-only story
an(t)i-mal(l)
a sestina
Downtown is a blood-clotted cluster of veins,
where light is pollution and the sky never blue,
every hillside quiet as a grave,
waiting for something, anything to break,
to feel that dampness on the edge of the wind,
memory smothered with a shopping mall.
There’s a monster, a wad of cash in its maw,
an arrow in its throat like a bad weather vane
oblivious to the direction of the wind,
everything dying, born to be blue,
comfortable in slate as the storm cloud breaks
turning all young faces into open graves.
Time existed before a clock face engraved,
that presence acting on all surfaces like a maul,
pounding, relentless until they crack and they break
an eventuality that makes individuality vain,
while every bird only seems to sing the blues,
and every wild thing needs a window.
An old watch will eventually need winding,
as the joints of giants are grinding into gravel,
the hottest stars are burning bright blue
so far away their beauty is a ghost mallet
leaving an echo where meaning taps its vein,
bulldozer drivers taking their foot off the brake.
The modern age can’t stop to take a break,
to wonder where all the breathable air went,
it would destroy the moon to find a precious vein
and tell children to make their wishes graves.
Behind every parking lot there’s a skyscraper mal-
ignance, saying sapphires in the sea keep it blue.
The ice caps melted before the volcano blew,
and the eruption lit…
