shadows throw people onto the pavement
to slip away between the cracks & furrows
to an ocean somewhere beneath the city
where sunken bones & dead dreams recriminate

with golden teeth the stonefishes greet them
such disarming smiles before they jab them
& the bubbles of hope swirl to the bottom
to be sucked clean under tectonic & sand

remember me tripping on cobblestone
remember it ripping through skin & bone
falling like alice to the antipodes

to go through that fine gravity filter
one must first relinquish personhood
& reach emersion at the far side of firma
find a meaningful death before one’s birth

in this world the shadows are disappearing
unanchored from the people we have lost
fading away, so happy, oblivious
to all suffering done, never to return

remember me tripping on cobblestone
remember it ripping through skin & bone
falling like alice to the antipodes