Field Guide to Disintegration and Other Methods of Decay

Sprinklers stutter on plush lawns
and laugh tracks waft through open windows
 
while down the street, modest brick houses
are consumed by the earth’s sudden mouth.
 
Somewhere in the park, a human body
decomposes in a ravine. There, inside of
 
the trunk of that red ash, sapwood rots,
its soft factories of cells thrumming
 
towards obsolescence. The injuries of time
rack everything. The injuries of time are irreparable
 
and revelatory. The era of declaring eras over
continues indefinitely. Praise the living body
 
for growing new skin.
 
 
 

Elizabeth Onusko’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in Slice Magazine, The Journal, Poetry East, Linebreak, The Collagist, Radar Poetry, Front Porch, and The Adroit Journal, among others, has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and has been featured on Verse Daily. She is the author of a chapbook, The Prague Winter (Finishing Line Press).