already packed my bags

the city was so far behind us now
that this might have been
the last road left on earth.

i wanted to follow it
until the highway fell away
into the sea,

instead i pressed myself
against the horizon
to inhale
the warmth of new bitumen
as it turned hard against the wind.

we half suspected what would happen
if our enormous scaffold
ceased to hold up
this corner of the world,

& it occurred to me
that hundreds of engineers & labourers
had worked for years

to build us a stage
for this silence:

we waited for darkness
to fall,
but time
insisted on defying us

by standing
still.