The Persistence of Memory

The fleshy creature draped across a rock
bringing to mind my terrier’s passing, tongue
paralyzed, folded, drooping as he clung
to being, gasping, braindead. A wooden block
and clocks that flop (“The Camembert of time”).
Ants drawn to a gold watch like bees to nectar.
A dried-out leafless tree still trying to climb
toward a light shining upon this specter
of absolute extinction. The sinking sun
casts shadows on the ominous beach, the sea
still lit, as are the far-off cliffs, ablaze
in a world that unrelentingly decays,
a cliff that feels some lifeless sort of glee
persisting in a world whose days are done.

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Appeared in The Ekphrastic Review.