MAGIC DEATH

where does magic go to die,

when the children grow and lose

the eyes to see it with?

does it float up and away to venture out

beyond the hills, or does it sink low

enough to burrow itself under the sea

with the world’s most covert creatures?

does it exist here, near and waiting,

beneath our feet in just the crevices

we would never see, too distracted

by the clock and the chase,

too busy to think to look?

does it rise to illuminate the stars

with pale glittering explosions of dust

our human gazes unlearn, shunned

from the loss of its home?

does it flicker and fade into

nothingness, or does it move down

the family tree, seeping into the next

young warm flesh it finds

until the skin grows cold and taut

and, with life’s cruel pull,

disappears up into the storm clouds

we pull each other inside from

under the guise of protection,

yanking the shutters closed and

pulling the blinds, steering each other

further from that soft, seductive swell,

that cracked, dangerous expanse

in the sky, where we tell ourselves that

only a child could fit; only a child could

jump high enough to reach it