featured photo by Talitha May
* * *
End of the World
When I finally found you
It was the end of the world.
The corals bleached
The eastern trees went west
And the whales disappeared.
Behind glass, I watched crows fly from their roost into
Quiet blackness, barely perceptible against
An invisible sky.
Where were you
when my books held promises,
when swallowtails danced above cosmos,
and bumble bees shimmered above wild clover?
It was the end of the world when I heard
your heart beat behind a scarred wall—
a sagging geometry
an exclusion zone of
stripped grocery stores
and vacant parking lots
while deer and ravens gingerly veered into quietude.
* * *
Talitha May is a researcher and artist who lives in the Pacific Northwest.
