There has been talk of maps lately.

 

Maps on the news

about where the blood sprawls into the dirt.

 

Where ruptured veins freely vein

into fractals, into open branches

into bleeding trees of life

before they dry

and dust returns to dust.

 

Behold the border here.

See, this blood is tragedy.

Look across the line,

this blood is necessity.

 

The map makers have always been clear

that souls are interchangeable

but the lines,

the lines are holy.

We went to sleep with the sea on fire

and we woke up post-war.

 

Pacific highway

broken on the beach.

 

So much has disappeared with the night.

 

Each gray flake

was an oak

was a church

was a photograph from a bedroom wall

 

So much has disappeared with the night.

 

And the sky is poisonous

and mountainous with sorrow.

 

And the hazy palms break their backs

choking on the wind

 

and we wish that prayers could turn

into water

or an old God of the canyon could be

beckoned back

to see us and spare us

as sons and as daughters

but the hell in the brush

burns blindly black.

 

So much has disappeared with the night.

 

Each gray flake

was just Christmas

was a vase of flowers in the window.

was your mother’s garden

 

I cannot recognize the roads.

So much has disappeared with the night.