Beatrice of Paradiso
4:32AM
Lady, we won’t ask again:
do you or do you not
profess yourself to be
a celestial being?
Dawn spills in through the window.
Kill her.
~~~
5:55PM
It’s too bad they erased
the schizomaniac (so they said)
who lived up the hill,
shot her six times.
She spoke of great upheaval
and was never wrong,
not once.
She spoke to us
of salvation and
the error in our ways,
which was more
than we could bear.
She once told me
she loved me,
and I could tell
she really meant it.
They say she came
from the moon.
My Brother Steve
I drove up to Rancho Cucamonga to visit my brother. Steve had just gotten out of a cold tub when I arrived. You really oughta invest in a shower, I told him. He’d found a way to funnel the groundwater directly into a dug hole under his canopy. He said, It’s better this way, baptismal in a sense. When I return to Kalamazoo, I shan’t be tainted by overhead waters lest they be rain. That makes a lot of sense, I told him. We both grunted as we sat down on our respective stumps. He was getting older. So was I. I know what you’re thinking, but it ain’t so bad, he said. I didn’t say anything. Yeah, OK. OK good. Care for some oysters? How’d you manage to get these? The ocean is fifty miles from here, and I know you didn’t go all the way out there (grocery stores were not to be trusted). Steve made a face that would’ve frightened me if I hadn’t known him so well. Let’s just say, he said, everything is going according to plan. Steve always answered me in code. He didn’t want anyone, even his own brother, knowing what he was up to since he got out of County. That’s good Steve, I told him. You know what else? he said. I noticed him relax once he saw there would be no more probing as to his operations. I’ve got a way of taking it a whole lot further. Uh-huh, I said, how’s that? That my dear brother, he replied, you wouldn’t understand even if I told you. Here, drink this. And I did, trustingly. And the sun blackened.
Cat Sitting at the End of the World
When the space taxis arrived on Earth,
I watched all manner of folk depart.
Joe from the deli, Alice Marsden
whom I met in Doomers Anonymous…
I typically would not disclose her name
what with the anonymity of the program,
but figure she wouldn’t mind—
she, her husband, and their two kids
are far beyond orbit by now.
It’s just me and my friend’s cat here.
They wouldn’t let him take her, stating
that it’s yet to be determined whether Mars’s
climate will support felines. And personally,
it’s nice to have company.
Sure, the Great War of 2042
wiped out most everyone I know,
but the residual radiation is manageable
with the right equipment. I never was
much of a patriot, but it turns out
I am an earthling through and through.
Besides, if I left,
who would look after this cat?
Before long, another family caught wind
about the cat and left their old basset hound
on my stoop. Another a pig, another a rabbit,
three fish, a parakeet, and a sugar glider.
I fed them whatever I could salvage from
the abandoned stores nearby, and, as the
toxic ocean began to encroach
upon the mainland, we hopped aboard
Wild Ted’s pontoon with as much
gas and feed as we could haul.
I thought now might be
a fine time to take up prayer.
Good bird! spoke the parakeet,
which felt significant in the moment.
— Spencer Eckart is an Austin-based poet and writer. His work has appeared in APOCALYPSE CONFIDENTIAL, Ghost City Press, and elsewhere.