by Bill Britton
Above an arc of black coffee,
ebony figures,
gnarled and wrapped
in dusty parchment,
lean across the screen,
their eyes charred by hunger,
their nurslings adrift
in a wasteland of withered breasts,
their bodies bent by indifferent winds
that swirl over umbered landscapes
and scourge this kindling of races
raked into barren corners
and lost in the gaze of camera lenses.
Bill Britton is copy editor for American Journal of Philology and is presently associated with a project designed to raise public awareness regarding the immediate dangers inherent to greenhouse gas emissions. His earlier therapeutic regimen as a commercial shellfish harvester has been replaced by daily rides on his bicycle and motorcycle, both of which serve to clear his brain and thus make way for new trivialities. A (faithful) former Marine, Bill is an adamant pacifist and atheist, an anathema to today's U.S. polity.