the underworld gives back its dead
the flood gives back its rivulets of rain
back unseen go gamma rays
through distant zones of darkly-mattered space
goodbye hate-filled diatribes spit
by small men with bigger ideas about themselves
plastic jugs escape their fate fifty feet deep in the burning dump
to be refilled by milk that sweetest sap
the universe contracts
the Earth runs backward in its weeping eye
heat cools & ice bursts into steam
songs of lost singers echo again from the lips of this new life
I rescind the words I never said aloud
those that sting my lungs like fangs of smoke
as a dandelion blesses the mower’s blade
gluing the seedhead to its slender neck
Ace Boggess is the author of two books of poetry: The Prisoners (Brick Road Poetry Press, 2014) and The Beautiful Girl Whose Wish Was Not Fulfilled (Highwire Press, 2003). His writing has appeared in Harvard Review, Mid-American Review, Atlanta Review, Rattle, River Styx, Southern Humanities Review and many other journals. He currently resides in Charleston, West Virginia.
