Poem: 'Transmission'

 by Rowan R

You break the sunset sky into pieces like the segments of an orange;

Your lungs, your throat, fill with empty space, flecked with the shadows of birds.

Startled magpies take flight from the wire fencing like Catherine wheels.

The lines of the world are melting in the heat.

The quavering hum of hidden insects is settling over the compound;

And the towers are gathering again at the edge of the horizon - 

Pillars of greasy smoke blow to tattered shreds in the restless wind,

And a lake of molten fire stretches from here to there, and the

Light borne on the wave-tips is washing up on the beach.

And, finally, on a clear day,

The vast blue cup of the sky descends to trap me in place

Between the desolation below and the hollow vault above.

I reach out for the distant towers, and they slip through my fingers.

A slow avalanche calves away from the shore's harsh remembrances As you slip away, unnoticed, to somewhere else.