BACK
THE BEACH
david applebaum
Prophecy commutes broken
monuments, thick-walled
consequence where torture
leaves shred marks to the sea.
There, where glaciers melt
life has arrived on the strand
under street lamps that
no longer keep dark aloft.
No one asks whether the soldiers
there who laugh at death
have deserted all ultimates
or if such hollow times
seek beyond where we do.
Somewhere windswept sirens
bring to mind a conflagration
a field whose assigned plots
lack even a headstone
to mark the agony twice.
(c) 2008 by David Applebaum