What the Saxons and the Mississippians had in common: Both
lumped dirt over their dead until the skins of the valleys, which
we see from our balloons, became
pocked with thousands of warty graves. Measles

herpes simplex varicella, in Pompeii or Boston.
What we have in common is the
burial. We lie, mummies. We are stop-frame and
ash. If you slice us

at a cross-section, you can examine the breakfast we
set for ourselves before the blizzard started. Before the sky
fell and before our lives went

blank. We were are will be waiting but until the weather
turns there’s not much else we can do. The other shoe won’t
drop for us until
the sun does. Our eyes will wander to the door and
pause. The cats will howl out
the window at particulates floating
and we will pray for
heat, or a boat with an even keel and a burial at sea.