How They Go On

The sun makes its nightly journey under the earth.
We waited on a bridge between two worlds.
Nettles on one end, smoke on the other.
It’s the imagination, not the soul,
That continues when the world’s narrative ends,

We told the tinted ticket booth
In a story packed with plot foils and dead ends.
We were watching the torments of the damned
During a midnight showing,
Eating demon-colored cinnamon popcorn

Which we threw against the austere curtain,
Deviled by a couple
Obviously in love whispering in the next row.
Shhh, we said.
Love wore 3D glasses that gave her pink eye

When she turned to steam at us.
O garden of paradise, the city dump must be your hell.
Mice running in and out of mattresses,
The vial of heart medicine that expired with the patient,
A fortunetelling doll

With its head twisted off.
Blessed are the crows that perch on inner tubes,
The meek eating bread crusts from the trash,
Wrapped in rags as translucent as the soul
They straighten in a graven mirror.