Everything is balloons.
The world is one great clamshell.
Creatures of paper mache and plaster of paris
fly through the desert skies on wings of milk-silk and gunmetal.
Small children riding donkeys leap out of the walls to catch the dull grey dragonflies,
but fall as pistol shots shatter the fragile glass air.
Then the mourning women came.
Banshees crest the hills and rockets
blast the night to Smithereens.
A rhythm beats on a drum that is skin
stretched across a wooden frame, and beads
dangle from it's edges and rattle.
The children, now on mules, come down from the roof
to beat on the drums.
But they fail as the dawn cracks and sky fragments fall.
Then the morning women came.
Potholes litter the streets and people step down
into them to give speeches.
One man is old and wobbly, but he jams his teeth,
opens the door and comes never the less.
Then the people who wanted the Saint's land the way it is
took up stones against him.
And children rose from the Earth on camels, to stand in a row.
The rock of Ages struck them down
slowly, one by one.
Then the mourning women came.
And the world was a different home,
for all the green land hid and smoke rolled through the windows.
The white and black forms choked to death,
all at once as one, and they lay in graves
together with their feet overlapping.
The sun reached out over the hills
and brought brother to brother, sister to sister.
The children on their parent's shoulders laughed and their teeth flashed.
Then the morning women came.
Better...worse...or just the same?