Dzungarian Mirage

The city was a strange spectacle, morning

After the storm. Gods had become parasites
Rather than hosts. All the imperfect things fled

Themselves and the westernmost bent and crumpled
Into the lake of heaven's deserted shore.
We are almost at the end of the endless

Repetition of the beginnings of things.
Compassion demands we feel for each other
What the shipwrecked, storm-tossed, and drowned never feel.

I have heard persons who pretended to give
A faithful account of that terrible night.