The Lake Is Withering

the lake is withering. look at this earth. midnight is as the last day of a carnival. dressed in sad birth and sad death, children play with the pointed toad. falling from the flash flood of spiders. banks claim the brush each summer. high school ladders have no step upward. a tour of the reservation is thirty minutes. mystical practices of the shaman lay powerless when the post office is closed. peace wades into the sludge. nobody purchases a ticket. no bus stages here. the volcano has relinquished hope and turns dormant. in the graveyard, class influences dirt or grass. peepholes are bars, hearsay is business. everybody looks. a voyage passes undiscovered. missing pieces from preceding years sit on the same stool. stacked in the same closet.