he went peacefully
in the early hours
succumbing to
erectile dysfunction
his final request was
a last sponge bath
from the attractive nurse

recently, at dinner with friends someone said that we should all drop acid together
just for a single night give up being in control and live purely in the moment
looking at each other, we said, we’re old
no one had tripped since the dawn of the seventies
would our fragile brains and baby boomer bodies survive?

Walking behind two
Wright State students,
One says:
-Did you hear about the prank Jimmy played on his cat?
-On his cat?
-Yeah, he filled his cat’s litter box with pop rocks.

Nobody ever told me why the scientists decided to answer the question, but they must have cleared out every orphanage in the country to do it.

The first hour of the experiment was the toughest. Kids headbutted me in the crotch, and I caught enough shin kicks to limp for a week. Bite mark scars still shimmer along my fingers. I punched their child-sized temples and mule kicked their soft little sternums hard enough to make their chests pop.

Unit X-397 said, “Yeah, but this doesn’t fit the standard pattern at all. I don’t even know if you can legitimately categorize it as an apocalypse.” The mid-45th-century repurposed sex-bot waved one silvered, gleaming hand vaguely at the rift, and what lay beyond.

Bobby peered through the tear in spacetime at the acres of rolling hills and the distant mountains. The sky was blue. The effect was bucolic. He felt his heart sink, if possible, lower than it already was.