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Build the Wall

November 24, 2020 By Samuel Miller McDonald Leave a Comment

Photo by Sergiu Nista on Unsplash
there is a wall
between us and a horde—
mass of angels come to usher us all
at once
back to nothing
reclaim any hope
of our redemption and seize
our claims to absolution
that we still stake

in place of brick-and-mortar
dried foliage fallen to a destiny of
trampled red flakes
phyllo-fragile stick legs
scraping out rasping squeaks in past nights
hold together wet air inflating vocal sacs
thin as life
croaking out songs for millennia
hollow bones
and droplets
frozen into impossible fractals
millions of times over

that's it
that's all that stands between us
and the long careless nothing

and look
the wall wavers

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Filed Under: Poetry

About Samuel Miller McDonald

Samuel Miller McDonald is a geography PhD candidate at University of Oxford studying the politics of energy transition. He is an editor at The Trouble and a writer. His work is here & tweets @sjmmcd.

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