they say every lonely sigh gathered from children in that city
pours through her body and redolent skin, read through
the ink of vines on veins and restless, small leaves- torn with
tired hands and god's lost smile.

they say our days are numbered, like the
creases between your skin and the break of waves on starving oceans. maybe
the fallout of a country drawn by prophets with cracked chords and
an endless list of listlessness.

they say happiness is glorified by the example of science: the reaction given
and reduction taken in a stretch of paradoxical lies of paradoxical truths-
sounds of simplified silence and their tenuous strains of recognition
of the pale likeliness and dreams of a setting sun.

they never mention the beauty behind
a dying elephant.