“I held that black rake in my hand
like a weapon. I was going to rake
until that goddamn lava came
and killed us. I was going to
rake and rake and rake, feverishly
and mean, until the fertile dirt
knew I was willing to die trying.”
— from Dream of Destruction by Ada Limon, The Carrying, 2018
Eyes empty, everything empty,
crowd gone home to eat soup
until the last drop is gone —
Think, what will we be when
the delivery man goes extinct?
Even the penthouse feels like
a Great Nothing now,
and the glasses-half-empty
aren’t even glasses now,
they’re cracked plastic cups.
When the Oracle’s too high
to properly prognosticate
we take refuge in a burnt-out
Carolla, calculating the distance
to our next glass of water.
The dusty stuffed moose head
knows how empty you feel,
even as you sit, seemingly rich,
with the entire catalogue of
TV hits at your fingertips.
Windows don’t open anymore:
It’s just the shattering
we seek, the trysts to make
us full again, the blowtorch
ready to burn us whole.
