Or How I Learned to Love the Bomb
The big one was launched at dawn. Doesn’t matter
who sent it. Soon there will be others,
enough missiles to blanket the sky. I’m with you now,
under a willow, next to a pond, a crow is perched
on a rock hunting worms. Leaves of birch trees sound
like soft streams. Somewhere there is a man
wringing wine from a bandage into his own mouth. The gin is still
spilled at Raymond Carver’s table. Tallboys inside
paper bags across America’s parking lot. And we
have champagne. I brought Pop-Tarts and gas masks
for breakfast. You brought a smile that invented my afterlife.
I’m grateful because I’ve been afraid maybe this whole time.
Pour another mimosa. Tequila nuclear sunrise. I get good
and drunk in the shadow of death. You watch with melancholy,
knowing I’ve been convinced it’s romantic to die like this. Lush,
all that is green and growing. It’s spring, everything born
today will know only a brief, exquisite anguish. You say
that has always been
true. Look around;
a willow, a pond, the crow
devouring. Me
with the anvil hands
of an ape, you—
a shimmering tongue
of mercury, together
denser than the rising
light blooming
from that horizon
line. We tangle our bodies
in heat of blood still
moving, in tremble
of breath becoming
rare, knotting ourselves
in bitter kiss. Sweet
air crusts. Pale eyes
burn shut. If a flash
can stain our silhouettes
to bleached earth,
I’ll not be angry
at the imaginary
promise that this
life could have been
anything.
RAMSEY JESTER is an emerging writer in the Pacific Northwest with a background in spoken word poetry. Other work by Ramsey is slated for publication in Ink Nest Poetry and Licton Springs Review.