Don’t Die Alone in a Nuclear Holocaust, Bitter Flower
The most embarrassing position to die in during a nuclear holocaust:
eating a bag of Bugles alone, long after everyone else has left the office. Go home
musty skeleton. Leave the scattered staples and toner cartridges to the husk of a cleaning crew incinerated
in the entryway. Ruan Center drapes its worries over a bar district
named for felons. I used to take women to these rooftops. My limbs grew staunch
without learning much except there’s little mystery about the ways things work.
What’s incredible is that fermented yeast plus a measure of dopamine
overwhelmingly governs much of the rest of your life sometimes.
Or sometimes making the cover of a magazine meant to document shame
might not turn you up Mr. Let’s-Do-It-On-A-Laundry-Machine. Correction:
the worst position to die in is in your single mom’s basement in the closet
with Jenny Holden, seventh grade, who was too homely for me anyway.
The worst is wishing for anything other than what you had at the end
where my sister and I watch coral sky scoot to the edge of vision and pass.
And Muffin the cocker spaniel, and these single living cookbooks, this minestrone soup,
earth and heaven will pass away, but these words will never pass away.
