I.
Dawn, the new refuge, forestalled and disenfranchised. Shoulder to shoulder in the midst of a reflection, a caustic doubling of an infinite foreclosure. With the rigor of a mortician, the word spoken from the midst of the forest reveals the world. The distance between our hearts and our heads is punctuated by lengthy durations, longitudinal mishaps. Flat latitudes as we scrabble and scratch our way through the imperium.
II.
Another era was lost once it passed. As much dismissed as forgotten altogether. Brief forays into a welcome, a disgorged eternity. Already we were using our arms in lieu of our legs. And falling we reached out our hands, grasping where we could at a stray branch or rebar reaching out from the rubble. High sun. Dust in the air. The scrattle of insect wings. Walls remembering screams. Rocks remembering dreams. Acrid air. Desert heat. A blue, remorseless sky the color of western eyes. Once in a while a time is between what was and is becoming. An interstice. A hiccup, really. Lost or cast aside.
III.
Even interims have regrets. Swaying fields of golden grain, blue sky high and distant yet everywhere at once. Sun, hot and frozen, looking down on the wide expanse dispassionately, looking down on the expanse that is at once full and void. Wind plays a hushed orchestra as grains collide and rustle, as stalks bend and the wind plays like a hand over hair. Wide expanse, and empty save the waving stalks of grain. A cloud moves across the sun. The shadow plays across the grain like the shadow of a hand passing a light bulb. There is no one here.
IV.
Walls raised like bayonets. Roads a simple metaphor. Skyscrapers glisten in carcasses of twisted, amorphous steel and glass, glinting in twitches of neurotic sunlight. Ships sail through wide, choking seas of sargassum weed. A satellite trills across the jet-black night sky. Dawn finds the morning star occluded by billowing nimbus. Chief fell years ago. Sun beats chlorine into a vaporous rising sign. Phosphorus is Hesperus, loveless.
V.
Rifles wielded like trumpets. The infinitely wide, infinitely long wall of infinity, which demands attention yet defies conception. What flags there were hang limp with dejection. Uniforms of rags. Trenches dug by eager hands, eager to live and be buried and finally forget. Rain turns the work to mud. Turns the skin glistening. Eyes look up, receive the rain unblinking. Feet turn to soil. Banana leaves sing out the beat of the rain. Frogs sing out from the jungle, a chorus of angels rising in the steam.
Ian's work has been published in Index, a now long-defunct magazine out of Tucson, Arizona, at the2ndhand.com, and at Pindeldyboz.com. He collaborated on a short film based on his story "Gone", which screened at the New Filmmakers series at Anthology Film Archives in NYC. He lives in Brooklyn with countless other writers. Visit www.IanZWolff.com to view the film and for more of his work.