The Symptom of Sunsets

Black sky. Bleak sky. It is not enough.

No midnight mask can hide that

Jellied concubine, its rough shawl

Clinging to nothing, and calling for

Everything —

I am dutiful.

I am known to get the job done,

To pry the pickled fizz from the wall,

The floor, the crevices. There is no use in hiding. I will

Find you, metric centipede. I will

Bring you back, bagged and

Starched, ready for my digging

Hand, my heroic stance, thin and headless,

With your shy writhing answering the “whys.”

You are Exhibit ‘A’, Exhibit ‘B’, with a tail of

Ellipsis. Heed the critter, my reluctant flock.
Heed the critter and consider:

How am I to describe the symptom

Of sunsets? I, unoccupied.

A vacuum, a vacuum. A simulacrum.

How do I assign some elemental tag?

Ice? Shade? It is any other day —

The sun is a goddamned mole. The sky is

Emptied of its chip, gold or white.

So am I, so am I. A husk nearly

Dried. I am still. I am

Locked. I am hypnotized.

Here is your proof! The wriggling

Intestine of lenses. Eely threat of

Feeling. The never-level grows more aloof.

There is a certain comfort in

Numbness. A brother whose presence

I cannot sense in it. The conquering irrelevance,

The inherent sadness is so pretty, pretty. 
A pity it will kill me.

© 2015 BENJAMIN SMITH