There Will Come Soft Rains

What slinks between the city’s
hollow monoliths, we’ll never
know—we were half-gone by

the first deluges that felled
sweeps of forest and schoolhouses
alike. The cold snap took

the rest and now these roving
beasts make a home of our
wreck, lap water from our skulls,

dampen our history with their
wet tongues until we bleed
into black smears on white pages.


—Deanie Vallone