montana fantasy

a new obsession with the apocalypse--
whether christian or foreign (setting up these old dichotomies)--
where is the end, i've been expecting it for days now.

a man on a black horse, a pegasus of steel and salt,
who rides the ancient skies in disgusted patience;
and beneath the earth, beneath the dirt and the
granite and limestone-- beneath the magma which makes
its presence known constantly these days--

she waits, clothed in fire. her eyes
that burn, her flagrant words that push
lava out onto the earth, writhe in this
burning world. individual flames.

silence, golden and breaking, lies listlessly on the
garden path. the flowers are brown, the dirt is white,
the grubs surfacing because their old habitat is sour.

he waits on the porch swing, idle:
feet up against the railings,
holding a cold drink in a blue glass.
the sky is grey and all the earth
smells green, like waiting for rain.
his salt turns the drink to bile.

she sends her words first, a volley of pain and fear
resounding across the mountains and echoing through
the vacant valleys. she HATES. she LOATHES. she BURNS.
a quake, undulating, then buildings tumbling: dust to dust.

the ripples reach him, barely
upset the hat over his face.
resting comfortably, the cold drink
sweating against the glass.

she sends her ego next, a potency driven by mustangs
careening across the plains: ill-fed, ill-groomed,
seeking barbed wire fences to HATE, to LOATHE, to BURN
with kicking heels, firey eyes and dusty breath.

he pushes gently against the slats,
the impetus to set the swing
in motion. the mists advance,
his relaxation uninterrupted.

and in sudden, jerking bursts, she hauls her ancient
crackling body, all fire and heat and red, up through
the injured earth: fingers grasp, biceps strain, and
slowly the long, arching back emerges from the rift.

the first reaction, a tipping
back of the brim to peer
at the damage. the soles
and spurs abruptly hit the floor.

she looks up, and fills her lungs: a wild, sharp shriek
burns an entire mountainside away. the mists, the clouds,
escape her wrath and soon the sky above is black
reflecting millenia of space and stars above her head.

he sighs, sets the glass
on the deck (a ring of dew
forms immediately). he rises,
and sets the hat straight.

his motion attracts her colorless eyes, a milky gaze
still pure like ice seeks a cause for fury. the male
form, shouldered like atlas, to HATE, to LOATHE, to BURN,
rises some miles away with immeasurable weight.

he steps away from the
deck (now missing its house,
the winds picking up
anything not staunch).

she reaches her kilometer arms of flames towards him
and tendrils of hate flicker at his belt: the acrid smell
of burnt leather immediately apparent. the stench rises
and greets her nose like an old friend, an old friend.

he walks forward just
as slow as he pleases,
unconcerned that his
skin is melting.

she advances, shoulders hunched like a hawk, intent on
destruction she will BURN him. her fire robe flickers
blue and purple as she finds the heat deepest inside
the many-yeared and many-pained heart that fails to beat.

flesh falls off his
frame in great orange
blobs; dropping behind
on his path to her.

in cupped hands, she builds a bomb of the core of the
earth, all its grinding seeking magnetic power cycles
frantic in her palms. white-hot, it emits a shriek of
its very own: unworldly, unnatural, incredibly basic.

his skeleton only
comes forward, still
evidencing his soft
slow stamina.

she hurls the ball, it arcs across the sky like one long
stretch of heat lightning, and lands inside his rib cage
to displace the beating heart. her wild cackle slams almost
as fast into his frame, cracking, burning into his marrow.

he has reached
her rift, he rests,
looks down into it:
bending, creaking.

she sweeps his little skeleton up into her great flaming
arms, and leaps back into the rift. liquid rock issues, flows
over all the surface of the earth as they descend into
magmatic phosphoric heated hate, linked bone to bone.

his last thought
is a grin, one
final barb: woman
would end the earth,
but take down with
her hatred a single
seminal solution.