by Cathleen Allyn Conway
The town knows about darkness, the slithered purple
that comes on the land when rotation hides the sun.
Something gathered, slow and heavy and electric, almost
as though the town knows evil is coming, and its shape.
From here we can’t see spots on the sun. We know
where the roads go and where, how the ground lies.
The town has us because we know it, and it knows us.
It sees through our lies, even the ones we tell ourselves.
And in the dark, the town is ours and we are the town’s.
Being in the town is prosaic, sensuous, alcoholic;
black galaxies shot with morphic red. We see ourselves
drowning in the sweet evil falls and liking it.
There is no life here but the death of days.
Something is going to happen. Can’t we feel it?