Aftershock

My preoccupation with apocalypses

dances around dewy skincare, interest rates, news of

death upon rubble upon a big gaping void.

On the screen I can play pretend

watch Julia Roberts freak out then

binge-watch a fictional anarchist’s dream

but when the credits roll I’m right back

in the insulated aftermath, walls plush and pink

fractal of the falling sky outside

a rose-coloured violence popping off like

every delicate matter at the edge of its patience.

Not all wounds bleed,

I gander there’s an itty bitty one in me,

pretty coagulated into shame and prisms.

And all the flowers, rows on rows,

twist their necks trying to catch

the last warm whiff of the sun.

They go too far, imitating art

imitating life. I rub the velvet petals

between my fingers like it’s my first and last brush with death

siphoning a tip as if soft magic lamp, some kind of reward,

for all this pretending,

a back-me-up or forget-me-not.

Out comes gunpowder and roses, its colours and meaning

all flesh-bright and ripe: saying,

pick-me-up instead.