Nuclear Summer

It seems we’re living in a brand new season,
half summer’s end and half the start of fall
and all dreadful. Bloody-orange sun
in a sky white as curdled milk:
air that burns and makes you cough.
Just the new normal. A season like
a dragon coiled behind Wy’East
belching smoke and spitting cinders.

Broken, the gentle rhythm of the time
that brings slow rain from the ocean to soothe
the hurts of summer’s heat. Broken, the cycle
of water breathing into clouds, clouds caressing earth.
We tremble now in nuclear summer’s grip.
Ash falls gently from the stricken sky.

Available! High-Voltage Lines, Knocking from Inside