The Road to Ozymandias
Why do you try? You know who I am.
Love is surely our need to be warm.
The dreamer stands up in the free-falling light.
Her murmur drowns out the beat of wings.
Bronze bells succumb to sounds of water.
Cyanide springs trickle down dark paths.
Pack ice covers the ground like a skin.
Homes are only a place to hide.
They promised us seven white-giant stars,
a moon in the east, a moon in the west.
We fell through the thunderstorm onto the ridge.
Now we shiver and wait for dawn.
When water falls, it hauls other sounds with it:
the whine of rockets, thin screams of pain.
Why do we listen? Do we think it’s love?
Perhaps it’s conscience, whipping us home.
The last data drops into our hands
trapped in a sentence we still need to parse.
We crouch as we winnow our chances.
Ash will always be lighter than bone.