Poem: Slain

 

Slain

 

the edge of time is a cut.

it bleeds not into the future,

but the hungry past.

 

the best we can hope for

is the rarest sort of beautiful virtue,

kindness from a tiger

 

or a worker ant.

 

photographs are slices

which, more often than not, force us back;

and then sometimes

you can just make out the telescoping jaws

and how,

 

piece by piece,

we are fed to this pursuer,

history’s long inescapable throat

and yet somehow

we get heavier as we go,

all too aware our flesh will be slain.

 

one chance is all we get,

a single moment, at last,

to look back into the eyes of the childlike monster

who hunted us down.

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1/20/26 a few mods

1/28//24 some mods

12/4/23 ... fixed typo

I've been going back and editing poems from '22 and other years.  I think some are better.  I hope.