above those mountain towns

I think if we all lived that long,
we'd understand - like the half-life of
thorium-232, an embrace of erasure,
the clouds of strontium-90 in my atmosphere,
this addendum to distress;

without a breath of oxygen, a stop on our intransigent demise,
asking what, if we've forgotten, what -
is there left to burn, when we've purified ourselves and still
we look like broken little lights, feel like empty little lies -

and we will fill it with the emptiness of air,
the crowded mass of light against which I cannot paddle,
fill all the cracks with science, watch that mercury
sink right on down, right on down,
while we wait for all those higher things to drown