The day noone died

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.