This day limps and whimpers
in a sudden mob of jeers and taunts.
Remorse muscles in, blocking
the tease of possible light
with a fuggy pulse of wayward,
gravel-blind, monstrous self-absorption.
This is the end of the world
and only imps and devils are afoot,
the wrecks beset by iron-hearted looters
stealing movement from the air, inviting
a tepid Armageddon, an inglorious
surrender to a dearth of visionary gleams.
And in she streams, flinging horrors
from the waste, a flick of her moonlight
cape, a toss of her earth-glow hair, seeds
glinting in the arc of her unwary arms,
falling from her breath in their own self-
fulfilling shimmer of death-defying rain.
Kate Falvey’s work has been published in many journals and anthologies in the U.S., Ireland, and the U.K.; in a full-length collection, The Language of Little Girls (David Robert Books); and in two chapbooks. She co-founded (with Monique Ferrell) and edited the 2 Bridges Review, which was published through City Tech/CUNY, where she teaches, and is an associate editor for the Bellevue Literary Review.