tick tick...

I spend all night counting the wind.

is it a prelude to rapture, the tree

rubbing itself along the fences picket.

the tick of wires.

night bends around bodies whose gravity

deformed the flow of the rubble.

a breath to be held.

a hand grows on another bomb. death is cheap to the dead.

it is a red dawn, some birds ratchet into the billowing sky.
thunder will come after the prayers



.