Wally West at the End of Time
Speed kills
memory. Does lightning
mourn the rent oak?
Does the viper’s jaw lament
the hare’s lost milestones?
How long did I run
to get back to the apartment before blood
stained the carpet? How many times
have I circled the world
to find myself naked
in the mirror after my first time?
Only the past holds
promise. How many
footprints have you left
on your grandchildren’s grave?
Have you ever watched your failures swell
until all earths are pock-scarred and sore?
Every future is a bullet
with seven billion names.
Where are the watchtowers
and guardians? The end is neither Atlantean
throne nor apocalyptic fire pit.
It belongs to the phantom
snails and the star-nosed moles.
Don’t lose the sun.
Don’t lose the sun.
Jason McCall
Jason McCall is the author of Dear Hero, (winner of the 2012 Marsh Hawk Press Poetry Prize) Silver (Main Street Rag), I Can Explain (Finishing Line Press), and forthcoming Mother, Less Child (winner of the 2013 Paper Nautilus Vella Chapbook Prize). He is from the great state of Alabama, where he currently teaches at the University of Alabama. He holds an MFA from the University of Miami, and his work has been featured in Cimarron Review, The Los Angeles Review, New Letters, The Rumpus, and other journals.