Loading...
Loading...
Click here if you don’t see subscription options
Amit MajmudarApril 15, 2015
Their shadows flickered and stretched to the west.
The future fixed its lidless eye
On concrete switchgrass, furrows of asphalt.
Telescopes, searchlights aimed on high
Shot the flare of the mind at darkness.
We stood on the moon but failed to scry
The star called wormwood.
 
The signal changed, but the curbs stayed full
Though seconds before the world was spinning.
Why shouldn’t a light announce the end
When light alone pronounced the beginning?
Men in nooses of patterned satin
Welcomed this end to wanting and winning,
This star called wormwood.
 
The women who stood on pencil heels,
The cubicle drones of the moneycomb
Were tired of sugar, tired of gold.
They looked to the blaze as a blessed home.
This star was a mercy, this stella maris
That sheltered them in its fusion dome,
This star called wormwood.
 
We raise our arms against the rain
And find the lines on our palms erased.
The dew is puddle-gray and bitter,
But we learn to love the aftertaste
Here where loosestrife meadows the square
And flash-blind featherless sparrows praise
The star called wormwood.
Comments are automatically closed two weeks after an article's initial publication. See our comments policy for more.

The latest from america

The Vatican News site published the warning after a 36-minute “deep fake” —A.I.-generated—video of Pope Leo was posted on YouTube.
A week into the papacy of Pope Leo XIV—the first U.S.-born pope—hosts Colleen Dulle and Gerard O’Connell take stock of the emerging contours and dimensions of his leadership.
Inside the VaticanMay 22, 2025
Pope Leo XIV has appointed Auxiliary Bishop Michael M. Pham of San Diego to head the diocese.
OSV NewsMay 22, 2025
Our country is not only in a constitutional crisis; we are in a biblical crisis.
Terence SweeneyMay 21, 2025