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[How on earth did it happen, I used to wonder]
How on earth did it happen, I used to wonder:
neon poppy cropping up in an ashen field—
bright icon as foil to the blues’ coming hunger,
the brain’s ancient machinery cranking its wheel.
Nothing works harder than the heavy cog
of this world. What makes the gears surge and the
chains pull long after the skin unclicks and logs
out has little to do with you or me
or myths or politicians. Seasons surge
through us like the rotation of a blues
chorus, something electric emerges
from the circuit—a spark, a spool of light,
a petal of liquid fire, a god’s fuse,
a president’s fane, the voltage of this night— 
Beginning with a line from Eavan Boland’s “Atlantis—A Lost Sonnet.”
Contributor’s notes: Simone Muench
Contributor’s notes: Dean Rader
[How on earth did it happen, I used to wonder]
[Near dusk, near a path, near a brook]
[Shadow, you’ll travel to what waits ahead]