We left this morning,
around 3,
when the pull of the moon
was so fierce
that little trickles of river water
came marching through
the sliding door,
and we prayed.

As we followed Polaris out of town,
we swept around the
chair of Cassiopeia,
mouthing her
lip services
and sweet-nothing niceties,
lifting her our complimentary
sacrifices,
our whispered lambs.

I wondered what __________ would do.

Out Highway 99,
the rivers were topping out
over the surface of the road -–
Our green Ethiopia is falling,
we murmured over the low drone
of the engine bearing us away,
Can you still not stay Poseidon’s wrath?
After so many years spent in adoration
of your own fair face,
can you still not spare a word
to spare a world?

But she did not answer.

There were only the sounds of splintering timber
and cold, fast water,
and driving up the bluff we paused to watch
the wood and waste of an entire life
tremble and release out into the stream.