The end looks
like this, I think—
none of that profound fire
and pressure of slow
grinding wheels;
instead, all is white,
and clean with cold,
save those
slight shadows—
the odd arc of gulls
obscuring the light
over the frozen footsteps—
those ghostly rows
and columns of yesterday's intent.
Meanwhile,
our bodies are all trapped
and peering, offended, from inside—
tattered and impoverished
as zombies
whose very sensibilities are starving,
whose every pore is thirsting
for a return
to that warm dark heaven
which must have existed—before
we were born.