And the world goes boom

Poison lurks on porcelain 

moistening doorknobs

infiltrating the casual kisses

passing in the human 

clasp of hands

Streets of gold crack open

lead seeps up, through

alchemy reversed, exposed

as wizards snap their wands 

across silk-clad knees 

and curse the fates

Gold crumbles to a simple stone

diamonds to coal, money to a pulp

the wisdom of the Bull revealed 

as just a gambler’s hunch 

this time mistook

Leaders follow as fear instructs

nations waver as fevered breaths

cross the oceans, cross the lands

the stench of our mortality

permeating, obscuring

the incoming Spring

Love can stand the lack of touch

the distance of prudence, 

the needle and the mask

the heart can wait for better times

and not break, not forget

the why it waits

The world goes boom

but we are we

forever