Snow-globe of Vesuvius
I live on the flank of Vesuvius, in Pompeii.
Each day the sky fills with leaflets,
smokelets, prayers to powers
aglitter whether storming or still
(the old ones mica,
the new ones who-cares-what).
Everyone knows there's more than one
kind of consciousness. Everyone knows
that in the snow-globe of Vesuvius,
the "snow" is really ash—
each time, the volcano buries the town.
Would you meet me in a world like that?
If not there, where?
Copyright Credit: Chase Twichell, "Tourist Traps" from Horses Where the Answers Should Have Been: New and Selected Poems. Copyright © 2010 by Chase Twichell. Reprinted by permission of Copper Canyon Press.