I live in the eye socket of Cyclops. I live

in its basin as an itch where once the green gaze

of the lake beheld planets. From its rim sipped

mammoth, pronghorn, and ground sloth.

It’s said, when the hem tore, tears flowed north

for weeks, that the depths bounced back. Now hulled,

concentric rings of shoreline dream such sights

and funnel citizens to the center.

Turn the horizon, and mountains map the ever-open lids,

our city the glimmer on eastern slopes. Here, we must

harvest winter snows in some small mimicry of glacial

feeding since nobody drinks from brackish pools.

Imagine: in every place I’ve lived droughts worsen.

When will sleep come, the eye close? I cup my hands.