"...when the cities lie at the monster's feet
   there are left the mountains."
  Robinson Jeffers, "Shine, Perishing Republic"

She left me
with the schematic of planets
and talk of the world's end.
Ever since, I cannot walk straight
lines. My hands find wild
circles in signing the cross.
I cannot pray.

When I look to the mountains,
I see only sky and clouds.
I hallucinate
pear-shaped planets
loosely stacked on a glass shelf.

I talk to my children but
they do not understand.
When I watch them line up
for recess at school,
the small tides of their bodies drag me
from my car to a sea
of swings and rusted steel seats.

As I bend toward the playground
in my fear of the world's sudden end,
my children pull me
toward the sky, toward the earth, and back again
until the entire line of swings
finally shakes to a stop.