Feeling anxious, dizzy, disoriented,
unable to identify your own face?
The life you used to live
stretches out far below you
like canvas on a vast frame,
primary colours bleeding through,
the purpose and the will,
core exposed and clear this area.
He is coming and one by one
all living primates leave the picture,
hoof prints in the lower chambers
and below that, flood water.
Do not descend. Do not enter.
The gravity here is punishing,
words too heavy to speak
or lift. They hang in the air
and bend in the heat,
rotting like chunks of meat.
The world you knew is a noose,
familiar tools round upon
themselves with use.
Tim Cumming
Illustration: Atlanta Wiggs
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