Knowing how to pick locks is pointless when trapped in a pit that’s man-made.

Void of footholds, sloped down into earth’s core, burning men alive—why, 

even practiced locksmiths who craft themselves a slight of hand 

matter naught to a game of fools;

where penetrating the world 

wounds the heart, initiates a slow, certain bleed, banishes players 

to an early coffin of radioactive decomposers and coffee grounds: 

a contemporary Viking funeral, lacking veneration.

Cremate him into a firework. 

Commemorate him in a blast of smoke 

that chokes Canis Major with an ancient vengeance.

For he’d rather stain the dusk with burnt bones, overlook Manhattan from the cemetery, 

release the Horsemen—than leave behind nothing at all.