Cycle of Ghost Towns

Only worshippers of tumbleweeds gather

in the local temples where

false gods failed them. They drink the

dust in the streets, recall the days

of the Great Flood when the roads ran

into rivers and carried the children away,

still laughing and splashing until death

came and they kissed her on her cheek

like old friends and innocent lovers.

The stone statues left behind do not mourn these

small faces. They contemplate

wrongdoing, point fingers at past sins

and draw cause-and-effect holy judgements because someone

carved wings into their backs and halos

over their heads and then left them

to be kings of a wasteland.

Someone will topple them someday.

Some young dust-scudded mess with

anarchy tucked under her tongue will

wander into empty cathedrals with ropes and pull each one down.

Their faces will run away bit-by-bit disguised as sand in the wind,

leave behind vague boulders over shattered stained glass.

The town and its temples will be forgotten.

The Great Flood will be stamped into

history book pages, or perhaps

forgotten and this town will sit until a new generation settles in

and adds their own children, their own houses,

their own marble statues. Waits

upon their own flood.