A Brief Eschatological Investigation

How will you begin? Can you show us
your missing parts by gesturing?

Will you correctly name the flora
overtaking the fenced-in field?

Broadleaf dock? Marestail? Thistle?
That vine strangling the barbed wire

stretched in quatrains from post to
post? Does it matter, the naming,

if the plants aren’t cared for, just run
rampant until there are no furrows or

paths or ways through what used to be
open meadow? Can you simultaneously

believe we are fungible and doomed, but
also filled with impetus and light and heartbeat

like a cassette tape? How will you
caress the sounds from it and what rhymes

will you lay over its pulse before it unravels
or wears thin and jams its innards into

the meat of the machine? Helene Cixous
said to be human we need to experience the end

of the world and do you agree with her
right now in this particular moment?

What is the shape of your body and
how will it change with age and practice

and will you touch me again? What is
the history of the surface of your skin

and how might you use it to correctly
predict forthcoming circumstance and

events? Whom will you love and for
how long will it last? Our flesh is vast

and lovely and marked already or will be
a map, can you follow it?