FOUR POEMS

1999

Pallets of bottled water on the back porchwere one evidence of apocalypseor the demise of the way of thingsor lazily written computer code backin the 80s, when I was a boyand the nightly news was just about all the doomwe had stomachs for, whenwere there even ATMs, I don’t recall,I had no money, allowance was three dollars a week,and the future, when the worldwas supposed to end, in fire, in glory,in judgment and vague prophecyand Jesus and dominionand I don’t know what elseexcept that it was easy to imagineashes and blood and choirs that sang like a storm.That was easy. Still is, lookingup at the mottled eveningwhen my phone buzzes with warningsand kids on scooters go pastso sure of bones that will never, never break.Betray. Bend. Bruise.I should go back in and lock upwhatever can beand put on music that will blanket all the thunder.The devil is bowling.The devil is beating his wife.Those were storiesmy mother told mewhen I was scaredand talked too muchin the candled darkness of storm-outages.My mother, whom I laughed at when she hoarded waterat the end of the millennium,convinced that midnight, New Year’s,the year 2000would bring everything down: power grids and plumbingand society when just behind or beyond it was wild murder.It was easy to imagine:the gutter that stankand the blade that was edged with red rust.Easy: that thirst, which would be endless, you knew it, like fear.