Postlude

The human swansong is radioactive,
bleeding out the afterlife
in decay
of full-bodied isotopes,
of thin-bodied corpses,
of animal bones
touched by the godforce
of a single metal raindrop—

it was pewter-colored cancer
growing on the face of the sky,
screaming
toward the ground—

a requiem
of light and the darkness of tombs
marked by untouched dinner plates
and interlocked knots of skeletons,
marked by flowers on rooftops
and deer grazing in the living room,
marked by snowing statues of ash
forever in the middle of something.

—Nolan Liebert hails from the Black Hills of South Dakota where he lives with his wife and children in a house, not a covered wagon. His literary experiments appear or are forthcoming in An Alphabet of Embers, freeze frame fiction, Lockjaw, and elsewhere. He can be found editing Pidgeonholes, on Twitter @nliebert, or on his website at This Rusted Throat.