Smudges - an erasure

The first morning:

those first disquieting hours

trying to distract myself,

wandering, listening, wondering how

we still know less than nothing.



I never realized

how everything is permeated,

the heavy noontime air

alive with shimmers and mirages.



However much we didn't want to,

however little we would do about it,

we'd understood: we were going to perish

of all this, if not now, then soon, if not soon,

then someday.


I remember

starlings beneath the eaves,

carats of nightfall,

every sidewalk scribbled with hearts.











Source text: Tar by C.K. Williams.