FALL OUT

Apple cheeked smiling
until that day 
when he absent-mindedly looked through the other end of the telescope.
It was all too much
too close.
The monotone inner landscape of
broken tree covered hillsides,
the foetid silent lakes.
He took to his heels then
'Here be monsters!'
Even a backward glance held fears of gorgons and
Lot's salty fate.