Cacophony

[jdowd]

All is silence like lead.

The canaries no longer sing
in the mines of America.
Their voices do not dance
on air like corporeal butterflies,
but drop into earth
Solid as stone.
Heavy as despair.

The poison is still colorless
and we cannot smell it.

All is silence like lead.

My grandfather climbs the stairs
like a gecko.
His lungs caving and filling
as he surveys the landscape
for flies.

All is silence like lead.

Clothes muffle the floor, leaves
heavy with rain peer through
the window at bodies.
Two horizons that split
the earth.

The poison is blue
and stinks of ash.