Imperatrix Inferni, Miserere Mei

Mother of god, she's out there
Tonight in gowns of frozen steam,
The struggle to rise that settles
In ranks of vague lights under
The mountains containing hell.
The city gets its cold reward
For fueling itself with the dead,
The stink of commingled exhaust,
The exhaustion poured into
The stony, fuming basin of cold.
Old texts, hymns from the plague
Generations of the little ice age
Knew how to celebrate her, knew
A queen of heavenly forgiveness
Does not always move through
Gowns of royal blue. Empress
Of hell as well, her rule is a skull
Of rock-solid mercy in the deep
Confusing winter, even now
As long ago. Let the rows of trucks
And weary midnight shifts adore her,
The arc lamps, dreams, and boilers
Confirm the chill. This eroding circle
Of crushed-up mountain plateau,
Patch of light, hub of humans,
Can burn but never connive a way
To escape her cobwebbed glow.