Dust

Dry flakes of charcoal came big as men's heads, slather from some great fire overhead. The ash rained black into the evening, clung against the mud as some new second skin. Each inch sat spackled, crusted over. Each inhale brought a mouthful. The streets intoned with choral wheeze and incensed hiccup. We made facemasks out of old newspapers—the current editions no longer came. The mail service had gone under—one minor blessing: I stopped receiving bills. The finer dust came down in curling spigots. The sick began to bundle, hung at home. Count emphysema. Count belabored lungs. As well: asthma, croup and coughing. The air so thick we called it paste. Strung among the gusts came reams of loose hair. Blonde or black streamers stole from sore heads. Cells clogged the chimney, laced the evening. Though the TV went out again in interference, radioed men spoke the wreckage even in our sleep: whole apartment buildings ransacked in skin flakes; baseball stadiums filled to the brim; the faces of lakes and oceans so thick that you could walk forever. The plumes of powder flew over our yards. It beat against our windows, making bass. I learned to breathe in smaller rhythms. The incubated heat swelled so high outside you'd sweat forever, then more dust. Eyes encrusted. Nostrils clogged. One night, finally, the roof over my living room succumbed to all the weight. Somewhere in there, under all that dander, I often would regret I had not been.