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.