what sort of fucking supernova
had the unsanctioned energy to
pierce the great lighthouse’s stone arches
reduce each page in the library
of alexandria to atoms
put a gasping hole in a van gogh
and refusing to be born of man
(which would at least funnel our rage and
horror) instead chose to rise from the
loam of a storybook forest, the
Black one perhaps, a woodblock print made
to needle our fingertips and our
Senses Of Propriety, where once
we might have thought of lavender oil
and sepia and the scent of pine
now only fire and how can you say
“no human life was lost” and thank god
when afraid we tend to moan in an
animalistic call for mother
one whining note from our lizard-throats
and this is one sixteenth of a hymn
so on that peach evening in paris
there were ten thousand hymns in the air
stretching to reach back ten thousand years
and why on the other side of the screen was I the only one moaning
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Josh Fuentes is an editor and teacher working out of Maryland. He is currently compiling a series of poems about the illustrious King of Moths.
Stretch Literary Journal 