It is late afternoon. Soon the city will wear its night face, erased of myth and purpose. Night will strip it as if by scalpel. The central city will stand without pretense, deserted as if by a collective perception of contagion. Citadels will be revealed as they truly are, brick, dirt and mud dug from the earth and returned to rot under stars and banks of gray tin-scented clouds. In the cold dusk, the air will rattle with wind in branches and fronds, a form of music, subtle, vaguely metallic, like the sound of syncopated amulets. Dog will run in packs again. And night will fall with the weight and power to dull a world.
From Palm Latitudes by KATE BRAVERMAN
Silver Birch Press 