Underfoot

It gathers on the horizon, blood-red and hungry.

Watch it drip with feline grace down the fenceposts.

Look how it soils the shadows with its burning light.

Fallen leaves blaze beneath the silken touch of sunset.

.

Stay here where the cool press of night never manages to warm.

Gather beneath the ironwoods with me where dappled red

Becomes a carpet of fire and passion sleeps like a dragon.

Curl up in my lap for a minute and stay until twilight fades.

.

Stay in the place where time has ceased to matter.

The black cats have gone to the creeks to spread their gossip

So curl over the witch in the grasses wearing yourself as a shadow

And dream with me of all the twilight possibilities.

.

It is time now to turn bloodshot eyes to the bleak horizon,

Swallow our combustibles, and set fire to the town's pyre.

Ropes and flames cannot silence the truth but I am tired

Of hearing about your god when the earth moans beneath.

.

I am tired of living in the yellow haze of serendipity because

It isn't a personal thing, this good fortune, but a mess of lies.

I am haunted by the ten million apocalypses I've missed

And the one I can't escape, the one blooming here, underfoot.