You Wake

And the world has been replaced
by its own drab shadow.
Not trees but their flat
cardboard imitations
no birds but crows
ink black against a white sky.
They have stolen all the shine
of morning
swallowed the sun
the way a snake
swallows an egg
taking down the future
in one smooth gulp.
You stare back
with eyes so dry
they can’t close
on the world stripped
to bone and ash,
even the oceans gone
into the abyss
leaving the earth behind
a barren waste
without a trace of rain.