a poem by Willow Kang
i.
I was dancing in the dark, alone
to the howl
of a phantom piano
when the shamanic postman
delivered your flashing obituary
ii.
The moon is a junkie’s orb
& the only dowry
I can leave at your altar,
glorious god
of absent, unsuspecting bodies
iii.
The peacemaker arrives
as capsules of glitter
on the naive wizard’s wagon
Look at his charms, how
poisonings are made joyful
iv.
When I awoke
in the motorcycle’s dawn,
rising like potions from the
sand dunes, were exploding nebulae,
butchered by sleeper satellites
v.
Even before our last
batteries sung their swan song
Mayday, Mayday,
the river nymphs had dug memorials
from cavernulous corals
for bodies cocooned
in uncharted vacuums
vi.
Today painkillers fill the void
of your solar system, steeped
in the unrestrained gleam of an usurper
You are what the settlers pray to
& in your godless absence
I tread on this tenuous freedom