Word for the 21st Century

In the unbreakable summers,

heat muffles even the stars

in their stalled dark. No smallest

wind touches days that are empty

as the ears of the deaf, days colored

that pale red closed eyes can see.

Our hands are open but blank,

their rivering prophecies erased.

Heat pulls the lakes and streams

out of their beds and takes them elsewhere.

Songbirds fall straight from the dulled air

into dying flowers.

This time,

the blind and unhearing will learn

water not by touch but by absence,

in a silence whose name is thirst.