When the world ends, it will end in squirrels.
The sun will warm our bald spots, and the wind
will blow the stench of our failures into someone
else’s kitchen. No more being sad about the price
of acorns. No more hollow trees filled with someone
else’s nuts. I’ll have my own shoebox of fetal
oak trees rattling around like my long lost teeth.
They say the best way to eat acorns is to wait
for them to become a squirrel, for the squirrel
to make it as a stand-up comic. Then consume
him by laughing about airline food, white people
dancing, his war against the interlopers
in his backyard, the psychological cost
of which is darker than the inside of a nut.
When the world ends, when it’s finally over—
which is right now—it will end in flopsweat.

————

CL Bledsoe is the author of a dozen books, most recently the novel Man of Clay and the poetry collection Riceland.

Michael Gushue runs the nano-press Beothuk Books and is co-founder of Poetry Mutual/Vrzhu Press. His work appears online and in print, most recently in Beltway Poetry Quarterly, the Michigan Quarterly, and Gargoyle. His chapbooks are “Gathering Down Women,” “Conrad,” and “Pachinko Mouth” (from Plan B Press).