apocolypse singing on the orange-blinking road 

we took our ostriches
down to nowhere. their eyes 
like marbel dungeons & their 
foot prints dinosaur-fossiling 
across the last boulevard. gravel & 
gear & grim evening. trees like 
monkey's paws. sachels full of soda tabs. 
we didn't think we would survive the ice zone
or the lily waste. took no time
feeling thankful & just kept knuckling. 
our dogs with their snake faces tasting 
citrus in the air or morsels. i could use
a morsel. something dark & lime.
someone sings just beyond sight.
a kind of monsterous singing--
loud like a pipe organ & we are both
made young & church-bound again.
your face stain-glasses over. 
you stand still like a grave marker. 
your bird shaking you off her back. 
i'll soon have to leave you. 
the red all road. the road all red.
i have nothing left to move towards
but vibration & lichen feathers. you were
a good traveler too but in this landscape 
face is made shatterable by simply 
the wrong memory. we used to eat from the hands 
of elephant men. we used to trust
even the ankles of passing shadow-throwers
& now here we are with our lists
of departures. you don't even speak
my name. i knock on your collar bone
& it sounds wooden as a front door.
nothing said nothing lost. my tongue 
twists like a barbershop poll. lingering
is what kills you but also what
makes you real. without lingering
what am i but a bouquet of steps?
the singing softens. think nothing
of boy-girlhood or its velvets.
i was never anything & neither were you.