Meg Reynolds​

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Doomsday Preppers​

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The era of denial being over,     this is how I bargain.

 

On the street, a girl in white sings,     the end is near,

in a voice so high and soft,     one can hardly hear her. 

 

When I was younger and in love,   I used to cross roads very carefully, 

afraid that the miracle would end with my tragic death. 

 

To stop himself from snoring me awake at night,     my boyfriend 

props himself up as we sleep. 

 

Though he’s still dozing,     he’ll laugh and pull my hips into his, 

a nighttime caesura,     messy sheets soaked in June-sweat. 

 

We should teach everyone the caesura,     a breath more poetic than the gentle stop 

of the comma. 

 

When I pray,    I pray that we are unwittingly perfect for that long, the length 

of a pause, 7 billion monkeys typing a brief paradise. 

 

Without planning or noticing,     half of us are caught in the soft net of sleep, 

while the other yawns at our grandmother’s feet, mouths in round hosannas. 

 

And because all at once we want for nothing,     God carves 

a checkmark in her notes before losing them, the moment breathing 

in memory like a second fall, our lives in cascading Edens. 

 

If my wedding vows are in verse,     I will promise him not virtue 

but a dignified cataclysm. 

 

If we burn,     I will give him the same as now, pause 

and the darkness.

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