penultimate sunset

the skyline evaporates blurring into that colorless white that melds every piece of the horizon over obsidian asphalt trickle latent heat waves as infernal Dis extends a finger— dripping diamonds from gray flesh: a command the earth hardens with autumn’s first frost black branches brittle and snap the university halls smell once again of auspicious beginnings every day, shorter than the last and the chills no longer depart from my body at daybreak i realize sunsets were only ever lonely when i thought you were here to stay