Because hell was a far more
complicated place that anyone could
have imagined, the jets spun through
the atmosphere, something exhaled,
myriad insects rising from
a dry well to become a lot of dead
crickets on a basement floor. Undoubtedly,
the escalator sucks us into
someplace foreign and green, somewhere
integral, aglow with lost ladders and
a woman curled on the floor,
a moon broken in a daylight sky,
a ravaged buffet where everyone goes
hungry, a marching band both static and
silent. Shades are drawn at the last
display and we are finally back
at the ocean watching the fireworks
with broken legs. We covet the end
and hope for nothing. Flags fly
in the still air. We like it here.
Dana Curtis’ third full-length collection of poetry, Wave Particle Duality, was recently published by blazeVOX Books. Her second collection, Camera Stellata, was published by CW Books, and her first book, The Body’s Response to Famine, won the Pavement Saw Press Transcontinental Poetry Prize. Her work has appeared in such publications as Hotel Amerika, Indiana Review, Colorado Review, and Prairie Schooner. She has received grants from the Minnesota State Arts Board and the McKnight Foundation. She is the Editor-in-Chief of Elixir Press and lives in Denver Colorado.
