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Working: Vol. 4, No. 2 - Issue 14 Summer 2025

The saints last march

Issue 9
And when the saints finally came
They weren’t marching
They were crawling
Finding the last sleepy town where
Few inhabitants dwelled
Living off limited light
And rationed air
Bringing to them
All they had left
 
There is
 a quiet urgency to their eyes
The eyes of saints
as they
Try to unearth something deeper than the truth
 that drove them across this forsaken land in the first place
 
When the people come
Out from under shaded rocks
Bodies Moss ridden and damp
The saints try to tell them that life is humiliating but
They say i do not accept this humility
They try to tell them that there is love still in their hearts
They say but i cannot feel it
They Have grown to like sin
It keeps their skin warm
Their eyes hooked on the fixed destination
Of hells expansive horizon
 
When the saints come
This time
There is not the sound of horns but
The babble of yawns and a cough
You cant shake
They’ve realized
Miracles can’t nourish the land the
Way hatred does
The ground has learned to resent them
 
But the saints have to keep moving
Even when there's no one left to be saved
And it's their own hearts that need protecting
From desert heat
They keep going
Saying
We’re only here for the important stuff
The eternal

SIDNEY CRUZ is an artist from San Diego, CA.

Copyright © 2025 Empyrean Literary Magazine, L.L.C.
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