World of Shells

Passengers on the morning train
Encased in nylon and grey cotton-blend exoskeletons,
Like giant beetles in the intestines
Of an immense steel-plated worm.
Their skin is dead bark;
Nothing new grows.
The shoots have been cut.
They began their excursion
As sparks thrown off by the first thunderbolt;
Shafts of lightning driven through round shining numbers.
God pulled on an overcoat of skin
And slid down pillars of salt, sulfur and mercury.
Now their squirming radiance
Is concealed inside leaden shells
And husks of concrete and glass.
Huddled within the accretions,
A king, a child, a sacrificed god,
Await the final trumpet.

David W. Aronson