Gargoyle
by Robert Krut

1. In dusk’s leather sheet, curtains
2. draw close and closer against a solar
3. explosion, an atom burst song ringing
4. through the skyscraper sprawl, its
5. spine like the corpse hand of a witch,
6. darkness sewn together by lightning,
7. the stitch of thunderclaps like bodies
8. falling on the world’s largest bass drum
9. while the towers’ breathing gargoyles
10. grow impatient, their teeth rotting
11. from the inside out, their wings
12. turning to tissue paper, to cluttered wax
13. that will fail their flight on the first attempt
14. to snatch you up,
15. limping off mid-air with only a lock of hair,
16. an iron-seed tear drops not from empathy
17. but from the inability to rip you apart
18. when they had the chance.