You Bright and Risen Apes

by Luke Jackson

Scarlet light through broken trees
Where the hirsute cling to black limbs
Over the moist and mournful earth,
The domain of mucous and grubs.

Ululation and drumbeats on the cold wind,
Soft padding of bald thumbed feet,
The pale worm blinks its sole besotted eye
Through clinging clumps of moss and earth.

“Humanoids,” it sighs, resigned to fate,
“I request mercy but expect none,
As I have strayed far from the hearth,
And none shall survive the sun.”

The uniform chant devolves to clucks and chuckles,
The sacrifice confirmed.
The moist slug rolls on his back,
Where sharpened branches sink into green innards without resistance,
Spurring consciousness of death.

“O cruel fate,” Worm speaks with whistling sigh,
“All dreams die in this darkening night,”
Now merely coils of steaming viscera
Clutched in newly evolved hands —
The gratitude only a hunger sated.