Surging Defeat
Is this Lot’s wife or some stone ghost-life lost?
A dumb catastrophe like meteor hits
And speaks to us. We feel the holocaust
Despite not knowing what it was. A blitz
Has thrown her clothing back while hacking at
Her head. She faces death without a face
And in this land, a dried up Ararat,
Her hopes are salted robes blown in disgrace
Back towards the blank behind the rock strewn scene.
And yet she stands still, still and hard and bright.
She stands strong, lacking tongue and throat to keen
Against the dark hulk, against harsh landscape’s blight.
Exact, she is beheaded even though
She has resisted bowing to the blow.