Halobacterium

by Damon Hubbs

The Fish and Wildlife Service
have been monitoring the pink water since October. 
I think about this and wonder 
if Halobacterium is the sickness of angels.

I will ask them if I see them  
if they still know how to itemize the natural world,
flower by flower
cloud by cloud.

I will ask them 
about the tempest in the vast surrounding,
the lines converging 
to pool in shallow crust.

I will ask them if I see them
what they know of panic and estrangement, 
and if birdsong 
can still heal the sick. 

Damon Hubbs: art lover / pie bird collector / lapsed tennis player / author of the chapbooks: “Coin Doors & Empires” (Alien Buddha Press) and “The Day Sharks Walk on Land” (Alien Buddha Press). His most recent work appears/is forthcoming in RIC Journal, DarkWinter Literary Magazine, Acropolis Journal, Cutbow Quarterly, Dreich, and elsewhere. Twitter @damon_hubbs