The heron scan-flickers the ward,
in its eyes appearing to be a bloodied fleck,
drenched with souls-departing stench
drinks night from its guitar of ribs,
one leg sifting the lakeshore-blue
drowning crowds drifting in the clouds.

A long-lost nocturne god:
The gum molasses. The street owl crossing precincts in extra terrestrial twists to the fore beating of the morgue across
the butcher store where the family uncle has scored blood and milk for centuries afore.
In the gray yard a fist folds
over the rain clouds, a second god rising eastward
A gangster brawl over women.

Back in the hospital ward
moonshine consumed my mother’s face,
Seared through the linen sheets to assassinate the the frail frame
of her resembling the streetlights of a last Christmas cringing it’s yellow head in eternal blizzards.
A young, ameliorable world dying on its feet by two hands,
By the failing crest of east,
By the old man fusing with the lamp post. His wandering wife’s ghost capturing the cypress shadow gouged in his neck. Perhaps not all,
he has left.

Like the little lemon ticket
we stole ourselves into community concerts as kids,
she tightly clenches the bulk of her immortality around my concern
Reading apocalyptic conversation to the crowd through one lip,
through her hip,
glassen eyes sunk deep in mortal sleep.
We lunge into a future

of new forenames: Departed. Deceased.
I think aloud to myself
these are words we use in everyday conduct.