The Dead King of Midnight is a broken watch,
Stuck in the moment of his birthing,
Blind-staring into his mother's milky Face
Riding the cloud-wrack miles above…
Or does she bend to kiss his crystalline cheek?
 
The Dead Queen of Morning is a
Log floating on a vast and turbid river,
Carrying her precious freight of mole-rats,
Caraway squirrels, and spotted tree lice,
Hopeless passengers sailing toward a viscid sea.
 
Are there islands? Will she visit them?
Only time will tell, and he's not ticking.
The burning face of her father glares
At her orphan forest children.
He disapproves -- or is this
The incandescent kiss of love?
 
The Dead Child of Evening is
Afloat on a late-summer breeze,
Riding widdershins into America's heart.
On the wings of song the child cries:
Hold me!
But all the bright apples of our cheeks
Are parked on a crumbling bridge over rising water,
Like the milestones of panic.
 
The chaotic face of her father flies north into
History, scouring away his own memories
In a flood of hail and rain.
Or is that the gaze of the future,
Stirring a hopeful finger in the stew,
while they each hurry
Westward after the setting sun?
 

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David Kopaska-Merkel lives in an urban farmhouse with a yellow "tin" roof. He has published about a thousand poems, stories, reviews, etc. over the past quarter century.  He won the Rhysling award of the Science Fiction Poetry Association for best long poem in 2006 (collaboration with Kendall Evans). Kopaska-Merkel has edited Dreams & Nightmares magazine since 1986.
http://dreamsandnightmares.interstellardustmites.com/  
Flash fiction  www.dailycabal.com.  
Blogs http://dreamnnightmare.livejournal.com,
http://dreamsandnightmaresmagazine.blogspot.com/.