In another season, another world—
that lost moment, we ran into nights
   of shudder and crucible, autumn

   and oceans—our love
barely risen out of its roots.
   We stepped breathlessly

   into a century of summers.
We watched eternal changes
   of the magic aster flower

   and the magic aspen tree
in the temple of dawns, open on all sides
   to white spangled light—

   Just before black asteroids
crowded our sun. The temple columns
   cracked under ice, and thorny vines

   choked the roads.
As the trees crawled out
   to drown themselves in the tide,

   we began our dying
in the black burning plains,
   our few seconds of love gone

into a child’s book of fable