Sometimes I conjure
the after after the end:
our plaster cities bent and broken,
entire skylines scythed as flowers,
skyscrapers rent into oblivion,
lofty hotels and office towers
leveled to dark flatline—
the monotone of a final
wind barreling down,
inexorable, with no one
to hear its elegiac howl.
I picture myself ensconced
in an underground parking
garage scrounging to survive,
dismantling abandoned cars
piece by piece to pass the time, or
curled on an improbable mattress
remembering how I once watched
two birds quarreling over a piece
of pizza crust on the sidewalk
as I walked home from work
and thought to myself
as they startled into air
this is not the end.
Sometimes I conjure
the after as it ends:
when in an instant
every last bird rises
into the sky as one—
a cloud of feathers and bone
devoured by a heartless sun.