Watching a boneless nymph’s 
half-hearted resurrection
from a spout in the pavement

We were between armor and mummies 
                on the ground floor,
weighing preservation in a tin 

Barrel bombs. Chlorine gas. Tomahawks.
The crowd balks
at the little lute sleeping through the news.

As the undisputed delivery system 
for this pathogen, 
you ought to be attending me, 

There should be a healthy trade 
in sandbags. Cement should be 
our chief export. Some of it’s made 

Roadside grasses are seen
to vary, stem and thistledown:
pale straw or light brown,

Birds don’t care that the land is ugly,
decorated with handsome cattle
and advertisements for elk jerky

Whoso list to hunt it with a camera?
The Carolina parrot is extinct.
Hunted to nothing emerald.

On leftovers ana breakfast   like the spleenish wulf the wéstenas chase. 

He sets out hungry,   nose in the wind, up the wulfhleoþu. 

After a luckless trek,   he gilleþ; and gaunt companions answer 

If you’d seen
        lightning nets in clear water, 
midnight blue beyond the reefs;