Robert Verdon, #269, Manhattan

watching a show on the Bomb

on tv, a tumbling rhythm began in my

soul, I could not control it, and

rolling downhill, my breathing

constricted, I did not feel whole

I swept into water a long way below,

it was sweeter than honey and clearer

than air, and I drifted right out and

could not see a shore till the breath

left my body but I did not care

for what is an empire without a machine

it can brandish at enemies large

or unseen, the greatest of truncheons

for all their police: for making a wasteland

and calling it peace?