sandtown-winchester, or we built another world
BY ADAM DAY
Sian’s taking two klonopin
so she can quit flipping
and face our friends. But the white,
white asteroid is crashing,
black fossil fire like a crowd
making way. You never heard
such silence. Satellites explode
like harbor lights, busses grinding
their gears through car alarms
all over town. Sian says, Here comes
midnight with the dead moon
in its jaws. I wish I didn’t love her
or loved her much more. She has no idea
how hard I try to eat her cooking.
We take our heads down
off the shelf, and ride elevators
into the earth and space
sickness; seal the doors, hope
for warm bodies. Barricaded
because we could live, we could
live compartmented for a year,
then more. First thing on our
emergence action list, secure
the lines, tour the debris,
the stray dogs, find a pharmacy.
