Better, they insist, a fallen world
than a failing one,
the radar of the reader
making empanadas of empapiphanies,
their sobbing sobriety
coughing up snot black
from the crematorium’s chimney
to dull the luster of the false,
as if the whole of suffering were available
to us for our own participation,
as if the creation was obvious given the provocation,
a shapely pleasure-doll decree.
Where have all the flower-lovers gone?
Let the world never be unwatched.