Las Vegas Save Us

A poem

image by author (Cirque du Soilel Las Vegas, February 2020)

Beneath the unassailable eye
of the solar-powered desert
children wait for their mothers and fathers
in the lobbies of old casinos
bleeding out corn syrup
in the perfume of secondhand smoke
where ambulatory corpses
pallid yellow and gray
take shelter
chain-smoking
by their respective video poker machines.