qarrtsiluni

by Greg Weiss

Brown leaves and dried-out pods dab at the erupted sidewalk in front of the ruins.
The water-heater kettle-drums the only tune he knows—it’s a nice one,
but songs get rote like everything else, without exception.
Time is nothing to total resignation.
Prince, Tupac, and two other faces—James Brown
and Madonna?—mural the walls, forlorn since the roof’s ascension
or dissolution, and clouds hang like land over the canyon.
Nobody in Hattiesburg gives a fuck about the Parthenon
but Herculaneum is a horseradish on the city-bus,
a French-pressed carcass on a pimply, sunburned cross,
like bronzed baby-Keds, our face
in the lava, the rote air, but there’s a chance, however slim—that’s chance.
Two-liters in the weeds, there’s a sanctuary in piss, and I’ll run away from all of this.
Tupac’s young and all eyes and cheeks, like Bambi sniffing a patch of forest grass.

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Greg Weiss’ work has previously appeared or is forthcoming in Boston Review, African American Review, Now Culture, and others. He is currently pursuing a PhD in English (Creative Writing) at the University of Southern Mississippi.