Feeble mauve

against the sky.

Are we carrion,

blistered and bleached?

Craters ablast

shale flayed

from mountains

and piled against

the moon’s reflection.

We were not

here among the sheaves

of paper, the mounded dirt.

I think this,

the wretched beginning,

was when I could

see sand, a mote

impaling the air.

Dissipation,

chemical disposal

of a world,

pinked by nuclear tide.