The Planes Were Like
Silver Crucifixes
Darkening streets. Impossible to avoid the scurrying figures huddled in their ratty coats. Some live in the cabs of the big machines, others in the jagged hole the machines were digging before the work was abandoned. A dog on a chain smiles fiercely at me with discolored teeth. Voices whisper in the hall outside my door when I try to think. Later, I’ll stand on the porch with my hand on the dog’s head and watch as the bombs approach through the white mist of the customary painkillers.