[poems]                  

from Nude Descending an Empire
Originally published in Hayden's Ferry Review.
Reprinted at Verse Daily.

 

THE BOOK OF REVELATION

 

only takes a moment.

Not one flower of paradise has been hidden from your eyes.

Night tucked inside night.  Inside fold inside.

Children behind fluttering curtains asleep.  Sound.

The way water over sunlit rocks looks.

All the channels all the time.

The long iris stalk stands upright, its bearded lips in the moonless rain.

You cannot cross you cannot cross back.

Naked, they shot them at dawn.

No, beside the river, tied to tires, set afloat and aflame.

Not one flower of paradise.

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