TRACE ELEMENTS

TRACE ELEMENTS


the tilted house at the edge of
the marsh and the gas rising

but the floors are level
the fresh sheets spread and
tucked for a funeral

the embers were still cooling
on Persepolis as a lone figure
stumbled toward you
through the purple haze

sand stirred into a funnel on
an ocean floor that no one saw
monsters were dying there
some who hardly lived at all
cut down by their deformities

morning again
but I am asleep


ERIC BASSO
August 8, 2012