After the skyfall

After the skyfall
 
 
There, in the chasm that grief left,  
is a minute, barely glimmering,
version of a man
curled into the basin,
crushed on either side from a meteor
and all of the shrapnel that came with it.

He pull rocks out on his own,  
from his chest and stomach,  
his shins and his ears,
eyelids and wrist-breaks,
some are lodged inside the mouth,  
some he takes to the village.  

The shop owner allows them to buy
some bread when he's hungry,
or oat milk, or tinned peaches,
or a plastic bottle of rain,
they don't act like they see
war wounds at the register,  
nor the state of his frame.  

An owl hoo-hoos into wasteland
but mostly it's mad
about the impact on its woodland,
disturbance of the peace.
The beak lets out dragon breaths,
sound lingers in the canopy.

By mid-winter a lone mother bear
gives her own fur skin
to aid the greyed fellow,
out on his own,
but without knowing what to do with it
the fur rots into a downpour.  

She doesn't visit again, or does, once,  
to claim some returned idea of warmth.  
He doesn't have much to offer,  
they don't speak the same language
- she leaves with no look
back in his direction.  

Other folk visit  
though mainly for momentary show  
with a thing that barely shines
half as brightly as he used to,
to see how wide the impact site,
to comment on the size.

and then
when he's exhausted,  
two long, gangle-dangle legs
not acting as they used to,  
he drags himself fearless
through the fern and the thicket
 
to where one mangled fox
on an outpost remains.
They lay in dark together,
struggling to get warm,
not pondering the future,
privileged to breathe.