Waning Gibbous

He held his breath for many years

Circular thoughts

The chorus of a song he hated

He exhaled

And he spread himself over the highline

The smell of diesel and Skin Bracer

Stagnant water

Feeling like wet shoes and dead grass

He surveyed his land

Patrolling the borders, completing the circuit

Patches of luminescence

From the corner of his eye

He sighed

Filled with contentment and relief

A happy home, a happy life

The eye of god had slipped past him

For a while -

The totems that watched over his high school are gone

But the land still belongs to him

A filled-in pool at the old motel

The abandoned grocery store where he browsed

A manicured lawn on the edge of the ravine

The decommissioned park on the edge of the river

A lone rooster in his driveway

The charred foundation of the old school on a dark road

We will forget

But the strata remains

London burned by Boudica

History warped by time

Metamorphic collective memory