Unfinished Work II

The waiting, endless, for something undisclosed,
melts their will and gnaws away their grins;
worn people sag beneath their own weight,
and break beneath their bags.
Children are appeased with treats
and the forbidden pleasure of being
up past their bedtime, but beyond that
innocent age, eyes sink and redden
like the apocolypse of Atlantis. The
sinking isn't the end; for some, the
depths hold an agony of bored, misdirected
anger, while others sink into a world
all their own. You can feel it as they
dance to music unheard, see it in dreamy,
smiling stares, hear it in the soft, private
laughs. It makes you wonder, in your
own bleary delirium, why people don't
drown for fun; it makes you wonder,
in your own sunken clarity, who
in Atlantis smiled at the rising waves.