The world doesn’t end.
-Charles Simic
-Charles Simic
I carefully explain survival in nuclear winter
I cannot tell you the codes but the seed banks
are slowly emptying fields of wheat flattened by
dust roads sinking into the desiccated aquifers
the earth’s mass shrinks daily the elevator above
the desert grows and grows and grows
a silver ribbon that looks farther and farther away
as we climb the mesa scaling tombs dyed with
bloody handprints they too clawed against the
hardscrabble scorpion landscape dreaming of cool
black space worshipping an image of blue
marbled satellites circling a gentler sun gold
green soft our dry lips healed with water.
I cannot tell you the codes but the seed banks
are slowly emptying fields of wheat flattened by
dust roads sinking into the desiccated aquifers
the earth’s mass shrinks daily the elevator above
the desert grows and grows and grows
a silver ribbon that looks farther and farther away
as we climb the mesa scaling tombs dyed with
bloody handprints they too clawed against the
hardscrabble scorpion landscape dreaming of cool
black space worshipping an image of blue
marbled satellites circling a gentler sun gold
green soft our dry lips healed with water.
✱✱✱
| Allison Emily Lee is a writer living in San Francisco. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming from SEVERINE, Bop Dead City, Bird's Thumb and Lit.Cat among others. She is the founder and editor of Daphne Magazine. You can visit her online at allisonemilylee.com |
