Late summer and the river has run dry in its bed.

Cracked like lips with fever,

drawn taut under the indifferent sky

a void has risen imperceptibly above the banks,

as the vapors of the afternoon dance off,

whirling around into it like stellar gases

collapsing on a black hole.

Uninterested, mute and aloof the sun

blind to the vortex slips dangerously near.

The Theory

not Law

prevails and

nature

the seemingly unconcerned

victim

of the afternoon

bleeds axioms and inferences

all over its colorless horizon

as the river

considers better of itself

in presuming to call it a day,

splinters the suppositions

and plods towards certainty

wondering.

1/31/96