Heat Death
Seth Jani

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The buses are empty in the still streets.
Long rattling pipelines
running the gullet of the city,
heading nowhere. The clouds between treetops
are the color of ancient gods, dreamed-up messiahs
caught in the liquified glints of air.
They are empty too, little crystal cages
no longer breeding the darklings of myth.
I’m a bad huckster, and so throw
my paper birds from the second story
window. Everything is free now.
The borderless light drops out
of the sun like spilled music.
The children eat its flames,
molecular and radiant, until their tears
are dry.