This was the ancient place in the blasted heart of your
memory: infinite sea, brindle of cloud, a wine-dark
stain on the sand. Village playgrounds explode in
colorful rains of granite and grass; children end with
laughter in their throats or wish they had.
Schoolmasters secrete books of philosophy and a gun
in their cloaks. The daughters sew coins and
prophesies into their robes. Houses are empty, doors
hinge open and sway. A cold mist floats through the
rooms like a forgotten prayer. The ghost of reason
languishes at the crossroads where the parched clay
sundered. Again, the world succumbs to the strange
madness, a contagion spit from the minds of kings and
thieves, its lunatic spores bloom and lodge in our
dreams as flags of villainy are staked among the
bodies: yielding, docile, abandoned of spirit. What
remained was the starry gyre and a spread of wings,
and from a faint and distant isle, a song: O cure!
Restore us.

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Photograph by Mikhail Nilov