A Poem to Zorya Polunochnaya

borne at the bottom of a well

every breath is progress.

hide from the sun and burrow your face

into cold bones and sewer

taste salt

close your eyes

to be overfilled

all is pressure and death

climb without goal or pretend to escape

inhale but not too much, learn to limit

becoming smaller always to pretend

some future that inhales survival

deny some terrible thing that lives inside

out has breath and teeth and eyes

out it chews fast bits of blood and bone

out it heats and heeds nothing but itself

it builds on bones and ignores pain

out it seeks without looking

as if suffering was light and air

tasty sewers like a feast sustain

it and other, they and them every breath is forward

against a sun that burns you blind

smell ashes and chew black crunch

past trees never seen with teeth

build foundation death, bone walls

in green burning sun light

sand to mortar, blood salt as cement

legs swim in liquid dark

roof food song fire, lost empires

maps of burnt forests

treasures of gravel

mountains of trash or ancient rocks

there and here something changed

we without them never known

Dragons just a thing standing

Here now, here and now, now not there

some pretend voice, some forgotten godlet

whispers or drunken visions

ladders to happiness, where we breathe

here again to start the fire

against a chimney we raise a roof

blocking the sun and holding the heat

here now hear now not there not then

in cold stars unseen flames wind a song

here and hear and now just now

walk away happy climb the chimney

well or hole or chimney ashes

burning sun or son you burn always

tides recognize their own

devine horror then and love now

stomachs empty now full

choking in warm bath of dream

swimming against dark waters

all beings all moving fires

deserve demand those invisible happy

stars before they drown here and now

choose light choose dark

deny the dark water's tide

brace cold stars

though roofs deny them