Step out of the house, away from the garden, into the fray

silent one moment, ghosts next, parallel and bending light

where I walk now, she worked, and her, and her and her

all the ancestors, dead and gone, buried to fallow, alive in memory

are they particulate or matter? Footsteps alma matter, gravity nukes in gravy

we all explode in starlight eventual on the coming

you asked was I lonely? I replied; I have never felt more normal

among the emptiness, which is full

where nothing is false and forced, but still

hush against the churning of the mill

and if you were here and not beneath earth, and not decaying into dust

I should tell you of my day walking cities cleared of humans

how blissful it is to know our scourge no longer ravages earth’s bones

for we are pestilence, we are plague, we are the harbingers

not rats or civets or porcupines but us, us, us

with our viciousness and our thirst for conquer

it is still now, there are no book groups, moms with spandex

jogging with basinet so father will relent and not read porn

at toilet seat

there are no queens and kings, ruler and ruled, subjugate and fool

we are all equal in our vanishing and the air is not filled

with our hungry competitive squall

Orange Theory hangs off its hinges, the former sweating classes

shouting; YOU GOT THIS GUYS! YOU GOT THIS! Gone away

machines made by man to live longer, to have tighter abs

to find ways not to die

my rabbit heart beats at 98 bpm resting, my time is short

I am glad I will not make it to 100 alone

the cars are lain dormant and disused, husks of

metal with radios tuned to KW5 where the beat

doesn’t go on

I take off my confining shoes

I remove my zippered clothes

it is the first time I can stand being naked

Adam said to Eve; I feel altered, I have a sense of myself

it hurts to know so much

and Eve played on her rib knowing it was all a crock

of shit

you washed me once, when I had a bad fever

my long inky hair xylophoning down bony back

I felt strength in your arms, how without

speaking you calmed me

Jack In The Box is burning on evening news for no one

I add my ten cents to that hellish advent

Subway and their plastic baguettes have been

overrun by rodent’s intent on becoming

fatter yet, McDonald’s M has fallen and upside down

spells Woe in bleeding cholesterol yellow

all the harm we have bidden

all the things we keep hidden

we prayed for #Meteorite2020 and it came

blazing in the sky, ravishing other

candidates in its wake

as Biden said to Anita Hill; I don’t believe you

as Weinstein promised his fans; I will prevail

from his jail cell he swallows Covid by the thimble

last applause can be heard from Rikers ashen shores

our puppets have run out, they no longer want

to bash and bunch or perform at all

they sit wooden and emptied of hands and string

the carved faces of Easter Island long wondered

who made them? Where did they come from?

In the depths, large creatures begin to rise

their time is now, the monkeys ate their own

it is the due of others now, the comet lighting

sky with inevitable fatality

I hear a song I danced to once

wishing with all of my being, it were you in my arms

but it never was, it never was

girls my age, give birth on door steps

with boyfriends smiling from upstairs windows

I rejoice, my congratulate for their abundance

even as I give them The Population Bomb

read the part where it says what becomes

when humans pile one on top the other

and we still eat food that is bad for us

until it runs out and then we eat the very

dirt we discover in our veins

why did you take drugs? the doctor asks

and I laugh and laugh and laugh

for anyone knows, for everyone knows

the misery and the ecstasy of self-awareness

I’d give my legs and arms never to have

felt you on top of me that evening

such as it is, we watch sea birds devour band stands

voles nourish on cement, foxes take red bricks

all creatures of fur and fang

still the song birds sing their cantor

still I remember Watership Down

where nature is cruel to over population

and Myxomatosis killed the hare

Covid 19 or something worse will be

our eventual fate

so long as we spread our social disease and famine

raping the earth, slagging precious ore into

worthless tower blocks who vacant of dweller

stand like wanton hustlers of the night

thighs thickened with cold

such is our heritage and future

stars blazing before they are over

usher in a new dawn free of human kind

I give you my greatest secret

and you squander it first chance you get

it’s my nature said the scorpion

don’t you ever

ever forget