A New Earth

Valparaiso Poetry Review

People climbed the cliffs to watch it shiver

back into the nebulae of smoke from the day’s

fires, the roads home melting back to rivers

of tar, littered with animals ventured away

from their homes in the dead hot light

of day, the hair on their backs stiff and dry

with nothing to salvage their flesh, or white

bones, not even the iridescent flies

breeding in the mud and dying in the night,