by Aleksandar Hemon
The new year begins with wildfires, just
as the old one ended. Thousands of homes
turned into ashes and dust, as we all
must. The end is the story, then it is
not. No body imagines the beyond,
what blind, hungry creature slouches toward
gnawing on our tasty bones. I was once
a person, but now I narrate the slope,
the ground rising to the peak that has been
in view for a quite a while. Hark the sound
of exploding trees, of the howling flames,
of the silence descending like the snow
no one can remember, long turned to flood.
I once had a dog, now it is gone. Now,
it is nowhere. Who is ever present
in their past or their future? We are sat
in this moment like the good dog waiting
for the lamb-and-rice pellets in a bowl,
for the feed of being and love to end
the hunger, for a snore by the crackling
firestorm of the nothing and nevermore.
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