Bert J. Hubinger
Bring fresh stool sample
Swollen pictures of a swollen planet
The lay o’
the land where we knew
The dead lay
so cold and wet
Bitter clay
just freezing
As we lower
her ravaged body
Into the
planet who knew
Who always knows
A winter
wasted land
Standing in
a field of small children
Nearly
frozen petals
We wonder
who will die next,
A cousin, a
sibling, a friend—
It can’t be
us; there is too much shredding
To do, legs
scissoring through
Strips of
history, wading through jello
My dissected
brain rolls bravely on
The paper
pouring out
Settling on
the floor till I am covered
Petrified
like a
The days
stumble and lurch from brain to brain
When the
mood is right, we strip
And try to
identify the right chemical
Before the
small black gang punches me
And I crash
through the giant
Snowflake,
sending shards glittering
In all
directions, my illusions shorn
Like fragile
clouds colliding
You bad boy,
she said
As I shot my
silver bullets
In her belly
and we both died
Flipping
through a photo album of the earth
Oh the
foolish arrogant pride of man—
Bathing his
bones in sugar, dissolving
Even as he
stands to claim his land
And that
glint in your cracked eye
Is the last
marble thrown
The lovely
light fossils tracing
The big bang
of a girl’s 4 billion year
Childhood,
the scattering
Of your lovely
lines, the fossils shining brightly
Fossils of
light, the lines in your eyes, the ages
Of magnetic
force, the ice skin
The last
marble thrown
Before the universe was born