Nations on edge, Bitcoin and Ethereum climb,
investors wanting out of fiat currency. Missiles
arc over Japan, Houston shakes itself from muck,
the Gulf of Mexico blown inland as the earth warms.
We lay our necks across the chopping block,
then dash headless. Who’s in charge of FEMA?
Who’s at the tiller of the DOE? Robber barons
in bunkers monitor the pulse of the nation,
then strip the corpses for whatever’s of value.
If nothing else, bone mulch makes fine fertilizer.
My teenaged son asks if the President would mind
were the West Coast taken out by nukes, solidifying
his base. Bye-bye Cascadia; bye-bye naked bike ride.
It dawns on me that even though I own cryptocurrency,
I have no idea how to cash it in. No matter. By that time,
all surviving will be off the grid, hunter-gatherers
drinking rainwater, urban farmers tearing up
asphalt for whatever seeds the locals stockpiled.
Devon Balwit writes in Portland, OR. She is a poetry editor for Minute Magazine and has five chapbooks out or forthcoming: How the Blessed Travel (Maverick Duck Press); Forms Most Marvelous (dancing girl press); In Front of the Elements (Grey Borders Books), Where You Were Going Never Was (Grey Borders Books); and The Bow Must Bear the Brunt (Red Flag Poetry). Her individual poems can be found in The Cincinnati Review, Fifth Wednesday, The Stillwater Review, Red Earth Review, The Fourth River, Posit, Emrys Journal, The Inflectionist, and more.
Editorial art by Elle Aviv Newton.
