Released

The reactor stands shuttered but live.
Its hot core riddles us. We answer
with the inventiveness of base pairs.

The underbrush sounds
our mutant chorus, the scraping
of mismatched elytra.

We blind birds ape bat brethren.
We stump-legged boars
clash filigreed tusks.

We wonder at the big dome, fallen
unearthly still; so much changed
since it hummed.