It was a day that no one died
The roads scrubbed clean of carcasses
Crews of muscled men descended
laughing through their coffee breath
upon their splintered handles leant
engaged in smoky argument
Their children's minds on wicked play
Engines revved at rabbits
Instead they passed the time away
with less lethal teenage habits.
The nurses at the hospital
Bantered in the break room
They patched skinned knees and moved with ease as
technicians hosed their stretchers
Frantic counts along his beads
The funeral home attendant paced
He plucked his pristine suit of lint
And grumbled for the lack of rent.
The gasping grey in rattling rooms
Over them their loved ones wept
their cheeks flushed full blown rosy red
sat up and asked for lively tunes
Each snake basked quiet fat with food
since yesterday
All predators had found their prey
In hiccoughed sleep with kin they curled
beneath the trees with chalk marked bark
Breathed a sigh their leaves unfurled
The loggers had begun their strike
They rubbed the resin from their blades
And lunched on cabbage in sunny glades
Production on the killing floor
Had halted for demand was poor
Weapons had malfunctioned
Piled high in dusty shops
with pastel tickets round their stocks
A loner woke with pernicious plans
his gun slipped from his sweaty hand
feverish he called a friend
who brought him bullion and sent
him up the stairs straight back to bed
When darkness dared the museum clock
that tracked the doomed still stayed stopped
Insects gathered round the lights
Then soared in swarms to safer heights
Clear windowpanes bared each abode
Through tenements and corner pubs
Friends gathered raising frosty mugs
Enemies conspired
and to these ends retired
Knowing what to do
But somehow still unable to.
