When you are exposed to the beams
and the wind of the universe
blows through you, you may still seem
to walk, but you are dust, and thus

the skeleton you are stands still
in the dark, surrounded by dirt
and the wind blows and the air falls
to rest in lungs and waters. Hurt

and defeated your body melts
and returns to first and last things
as tears that glow blue trail their salt.
The air itself was on fire, sin

of the knowledge of our kind. Hell
was not real, but we made it real
and now it clicks and clicks and all
would do well to fear it. I feel

a kind of horror, this grey light
that is born out of new dangers
which make old metaphors apt; tired,
blind, the will to power failed us

as Pandora lay in a ward
this blue chord burned into her eyes –
the small moth that had once meant more
that came last, was burned in the fire.