wet city street at night with yellow neon swirling across image
[ This image is in the public domain. ]

To wake is an annihilation.
The wool gathered
Blown and scattered
In draughts of sound that flap from above.

And the want to grasp at facts
Is killer;
The want to seal the cracks
Is bigger
Than any bribe
A dream might offer.

Now the light steals in
All hasty and foolish and brilliant,
As it comes again —
A grinding noise, metal on metal, intermittent.

 

EDITOR’S NOTE: This poem was selected from entries submitted to our Creative Challenge Series #3: Last Sentences, which required that the last sentence in the text must be used as given.