terrarium nights

by Richard M. Ankers

We look up. We always look up

to the diffuse stars gleaming

through our world of glass.

Inexact, these cosmic entities

dare the human eye to defy

their right to exist, as we exist,

hanging where clouds disprove

as opposed to our walls, roofs, 

and impromptu posturing. 

They look cold up there,

while we are warm, too warm 

in our managed overheating,

minimal even, but only at night. 

The day remains beyond perception, 

too loud, too in our face, hot, 

while the trees and the cacti 

and the flowers bloom

in kaleidoscopic starbursts, 

desperately pretending 

for their children’s sakes

to like it.

Richard M. Ankers is the English author of The Eternals Series and Britannia Unleashed. Richard has featured in Expanded Field Journal, Love Letters To Poe, Spillwords, and feels privileged to have appeared in many more. Richard lives to write.