In the twilight of my life, I dreamed of a twinkling pixie
that purged the world of puerile words and wanton deeds.
At first, there weren’t symptoms, things seemingly intact.
And then the world stopped turning, and I stepped off of it.
I went on pretending I was some figure from memory’s raft
of deception. I reached out to touch the little children as they
screeched gleefully on swings at the neighborhood park.
I drove by the graveyard with headstones dating to pioneer
times. Out of the cradle with rocks in my head, I consulted
the remaining populace, and they voted to forge on. I was
a Spartacus collecting my horde of followers. We resolved
to push back, take on the kleptocracy, deploy everything
stored in our rhetorical arsenal, make use of what firepower
necessary in order to annihilate death and restore heaven.
Thomas Piekarski is a former editor of the California State Poetry Quarterly and Pushcart Prize nominee. His poetry and interviews have appeared in literary journals internationally.