One Side of the World

The creatures 
who watch us 
with amused love 
are dying.

Sometimes, we 
have nothing 
to do with it.

Cicada, 
the little Christ 
hummed the 
drone note 
high in sooty towers.

Now its body 
lies broken 
on a step. 
Lifted, 
the wings 
detach, 
thorax drops 
like an airy plumb.

We live, 
it seems, 
on a one-sided 
world-- 

one tired

as a body 
on the city bus 
at night,
falling into itself,

head bent 
in the wrong 
direction.