The world has reached its end.
You and the cat and the ten or so others
huddle in a condo in Venice Beach
from which the dimming sun is most visible.
What song is playing?
I say David Bowie's "Life on Mars."
Ironic but elegiac.
You'd think someone would want to screw,
a final affirmative act
in the face of annihilation,
but no. Just seems silly.
Maybe there are some others out there
in Vietnam or Tunisia,
somewhere still with a little heat
as the planet's spin slows
into its final freeze;
a Bedouin who has made
the world's last trade,
angry at what he gave for lamp oil
but glad he held on to his camel.
--- From The Animals Are All Gathering
Bradley Park
©2010 University of Pittsburgh Press
