Aphelion Issue 293, Volume 28
September 2023
 
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Unending End

by Chris Wood


My wife crouches like a crab
on the couch.
I pull her to her feet
and the sea screeches
between her teeth.

“You’re cracking my ribs,” she says.
“The world’s turning off!” I scream.
“What’s the meaning of life?”
“Oh, that,” she sighs
and turns into a grain of sand.
I try not to look
but when I do I change
into a granule of salt.

My son bursts through the back door.
An orange autumn wind spooks
through the room
sweeping us into a corner
of old light.

“Mom! Dad!” his filial voice exclaims.
“What does it all mean?”
He drums up the stairs
and everything becomes
a dark whisper.

My wife boils in the wind
scattering circles of poetry.
Her voice is a leaf-rustling.
“This is fun!” she rasps
while she bumps across the floor
the house collapses.

Clouds are dying like angels.
Darkness shatters the sun.
Stars are popping like eyes
and we are standing on God.
He crumbles to his knees,
we drift like dreams toward norever,
become nothing
all over again.


© 2008 Chris Wood

Find more by Chris Wood in the Author Index.

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