this just in

                          clouds are strung higher than any cello

or even the riches of the world’s elite	            bigger,

more ominous, as shady as the last time somebody

on TV was read to filth             kindergarteners keep

saying	     the sun is angry and we laugh it off

because we are adults now          like our parents

looking back more often than usual       looking away

from where            we’re headed           we know it is

morning because there’s a black veil above cities

woven from the puffs of exhaust

pipes and crematoriums           the premise here:

persistence meaning the light at the end of a tunnel

or         the blood of the covenant being thicker than

the water in the womb	                            we wonder

if it’s still right to give birth              crows do not turn

white but we do now             we leave a trail of rose

thorns instead of rose petals

                                                                   nothing follows