Past a hazy horizon, Atlas resigns.
His shoulders throb from shoring up
too many pounded sidewalks,
laden highways and cloned condos,
pressing the guts from earth's belly.

His ears ring from the screams
of newborns in foodless deserts
and in cheap housing developments;
from the wails of penned cattle
and hormone plump chicken
who no longer know what it's like
to run free.

Bewildered, we sink through 
the cracks in this abandoned,
tumbling balloon. Hands grasp. 
Hearts pound, thrumming sirens 
into the blackness, hope still held 
for one more Olympian reprieve
before our last breath is drawn.

Pris Campbell
©2004

Painting of Atlas from fotosearch

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