(extrapolation)

2073: JANUARY: CHICAGO

The fountain lies in dust and dirty shards
of steel; this world from which we stand apart
is shuffled, broken, dealt like store-bought cards,
still bleeding from the (diamond spade and) heart.
The devil smiles like wire and laughs like glass,
I toss my head, the boy proposes toasts
to every corpse and jagged edge we pass,
to icy winds and streets now filled with ghosts.
So here we walk, the man the boy and I
(who now am Red of hair but not in name),
and in these urban trenches men still die.
The boy says they don't need you for this game.
I lift my hand and one blow falls, just one;
it's not unlike the firing of a gun.