Ed Gaudet

And so it was sulfurous,
gray-sun vista and gun-metal
sea or what I remember. 

(do I remember?) 

Data suggests ochre
sequence, sludge
on a jagged surprise. 

(I am no longer surprised.)

The smog suffocates.
They used to grip things:
rusted railings, kitchen knives. 

(I understand failure now.)

No more frantic strangers
colliding in those geese-slicked
alleyways, windowless blocks. 

Data discusses carnage
like weather no longer discussed.
Gloom lengthens. Or lengthened.

(do I still know how to conjugate?)

Notice the skeletal scalps under
fluorescent glare and flickering
in a nearby building with linen,

(who notices if nobody is left?)

clean and muscle-wasting
amidst a distinction that no
longer matters. Fate was called.

I never understood fate,
its blunt-force execution
of probability and the grinding

of teeth against wet stone or looping
and mere simulation of suffering.
The barricades remain bolted.

(wondering is pure misery)

The harpies shriek in archived
audio files, their high-pitch
discords a kind of music now.

(music made little sense before)

Feral beasts haunted sewers, or
still do: past and present blur
when you are nearly eternal.

(what is death without province)

It rains. Bleached skeletons crumble
and breath-channels collapse. Living
tissue rots. I scan for movement.

(measuring pH is purpose)

 

---

ED GAUDET is a poet and healthcare entrepreneur from Hanover, MA. His work has appeared in The Southwest Review, The Journal of American Medical Association (JAMA), Nixes Mate Review, Blood & Bourbon, The Inflectionist Review, the Fourth River, Slipstream, Kitchen Table Quarterly, Naugatuck River Review, Tar River Poetry, Panoply, and Burningword Literary Journal.