Is It Any Different

Is it any different than our own
slaughter, this loss
of cell phone range
and running water,
this lack of laughter,
of children on the street,
the very soil now ash,
the sudden strange coast
bone, lost in newscasts,
the tropic film of suntan oil
remaindered from vacations past,
a map of streets without a town,
fear spattered on the sheet
like trash, metal drooping
on the ground like fronds,
skies raining brown
and orange fire, charred
towels under charcoal suns
without for once a sunset
in the air, the mind a shell
of broken cars and flattened chairs,
of cribs and abattoirs.
Ripples net the sunken cove
like wires on a tree.
Dead husks tar
the blackened year,
and blocked roads link
the shattered sea to the sudden
souvenirs of beach bars
and umbrella drinks.

August 13th, 2023
Tippet Alley