The End Times

I have a thought I almost
                follow:

if a tree falls
     in a drowned forest, will it float?

and will anyone be left to tether to it?

       Bobbing to the newly polished surface,
                       of a world refusing
                              progress.
Like a body, its dark mass
                 &nbsp                comes up water-logged and wreathed
in sea weed,

shining its undone braids.

                 &nbsp                     This fear is white as bloodletting.
                    I can feel the ice translating itself
       into an unspeakable something
else.

          What I’m faced with
is faceless. So what can I do but push,
                                                   push:
                  off and out,
into thoughts that don’t have me.

                    The weird light of that narrowed cell.
                                         (Or is it without walls?)

The End Times

                    Should I make my daughter
                                        into Neptune’s
                                            wooden angel?
                                  her polished prow
                      to ride our erased futures,
            with a beauty violent
       and simple
against my
better knowing

I strike a bottle against her
a ceremonial launching:

go forth.