3
when he woke in the woods,
nights dark beyond darkness.
the onset of dimming,
looked for any light,
there was none,
lost among the inward parts
of some granitic beast.
the earth of years
without room.

4
alabaster bones
cast up in the beating heart.
the brain pulsed a bell
swung,
loped,
lurched,
soundlessly

godless.
he wasn’t sure,
a calendar moving south.
there’d be no here

then everything
paling
in loose segments
looking for any movement,
smoke,
cotton

5
holding the land of God.
folded it, carried it,
spread the small tarp.
this was not a safe place,
essential things
to abandon

6
the wasted country
empty, precise,
a burden of okay.

they crossed the weeds
the broken asphalt apron,
the odor of windows intact

 

Source Text: The Road by Cormac McCarthy.

Michael Prihoda is a poet and artist living in the Midwest. He is founding editor of After the Pause and his work can be found in various journals in print and around the web. He loves llamas and the moments life makes him smile.