ELIZABETH HURST was born in Los Angeles and has lived in San Francisco for many years. She likes poetry, alchemy, horror and politics

UTOPIAS

Is there any way that they can work well

Or are they merely maps to hell,

Satanic annexes come to settle

Among us. Tossed into the kettle

Of fish, a barracuda always slips

Among them and then it madly rips

Apart this school of innocent trust

And so hatred hardens to a crust

As they arm themselves with fanatic

Dogma that sadly won’t stay static

But fatally moves into the very worst

That we can imagine. We’ve been cursed

By our conception of vengeful God,

With ferocious judgment in the sod

That will inescapably receive us.

But hungry bacteria raise no fuss

As they return flesh to embracing earth

To unite us with this green sphere’s girth

As we soften and rot, rolled round and round

With the vast utopia underground.