A hideous pile of debris, stark and repulsively cold

Crumbling bricks and obscene metal sculptures

inspired by time, the bastard

The rubble only speaks of past monstrosities,

what they were willing to do to loom over the others

and fling and flirt and tease and assert

something that should never have existed.

The moon reluctantly breaks through the cold,

through the fog and ancient memories

To reveal a flicker of life with no beating hearts

but a seldom gathering of two specters

of innumerable years that flit through the

trash, through the moonlight, and through each other

A twirling dress and a smile through a goatee

Clasped hands and catching eyes

seem to make the beams and dust evaporate

to reveal hoary laughs, dances, and conversations

to produce a hope long forgotten and impossible

The tendrillic fog angrily grasps and eventually reheals

and the scene disintegrates,

leaving only the destructive remains of a people

that forgot.

And extinction ensued.