“We held hands on the last night on earth. Our mouths filled with dust. We kissed in the fields under the trees, screaming like dogs, bleeding dark into the leaves. It was empty on the edge of town, but we knew everyone floated along the bottom of the river. So we walked through the waste where the road curved into the sea and the shattered seasons lay and the bitter smell of burning was on you like a disease. In our cancer of passion you said death is a midnight runner.”