Out Where There Is Near

Tomorrow the stars go out at midnight,
see them flick off to please you.
If there’s water you can sail out,
if not snapping turtles will maim you.

There is no safety. The world is round
where a red blur streaking across the sky
is no meteor. Black holes abound.
You have need for adventure? Why?

Sucked in, swallowed, here the other end
resembles birth, but this garden ain’t Eden,
it’s up for sale, with slaves thrown in free
to help turnover. Nothing new is new.

Eyes that see this see too much, are plucked.
Grass fires blow into conflagrations.
Little storms whip up interstellar winds.
Their roar masks the road between planets.

Tonight a map to follow loss:
They go riding to oblivion,
two riders on two white horses.
They bed their horses in the barn.

Storm clouds erase the sky under night.
She says, Take me to your bed. I have none,
he says. The gully where his bedroll lies
is too dark to see, she stumbles and falls,

he slips his hands under both her arms
lifting her. In the barn they love on straw,
she sleeps. He dallies with shadows
taunting him: Light is the path to follow.

(12-13, 20 April 2012)

copyright 2012 by Floyce Alexander