Ruined By Neon
by Daphne Gottlieb author info
Past 2 in the morning
and Ethan and I are lit
by coffee and the fluorescent lights of the diner.
The waitress and her preservative hair,
her apron pink as candy hearts
brings us more coffee again,
Ethan with 2 creams 1 sugar,
mine with 1 sugar 2 creams.
He says you realize this is it?,
and I think he means coffee but he
means the world.
You realize this is it,
the world is ending soon.
The coffee sinks my spoon, spins it down,
sucks it down towards the center of the earth
the world spins on its axis below us
as I suck my coffee down
and I am squinting at the neon DINER
sign that halos Ethan in newborn red
the N is out and the R beats on
and off
in time with my heart after coffee.
The world is ending and unless you are
reborn to God when He comes for us
you will be left behind, he says,
to burn
The R in the sign has gone out.
I'm serious, he says, his hands
thin, listening animals, two by two,
jerking with his words.
The world is an egg, fragile and round, inside
of
God. It is about to be reborn to him.
You can feel it coming.
I am squinting my eyes at the neon
lights and all that is left
is a large red D I E; we sit nuclear
in its glow,
Ethan's eyes aflame.
You can feel it coming, he
says
the greenhouse
effect
worldwide famine
Kosovo War
AIDS and those gays
animal cloning
high school shootings |
(contraction)
(contraction)
(contraction)
(contraction)
(contraction)
(contraction) |
and they're coming closer
together
apocalypse now
the mark of the beast
the horsemen are coming , now
closer and closer and stronger
and stronger and when the world ends
when the (contractions)
stop
when the
kingdom
comes
which way
will you
fall
we are immobile
ruined by neon
we sit as hopeless as morning
shaking from coffee
in the eggshell fragile
belly of God
and I don't
know what to say
when the waitress
inevitable as death
asks will that be all
is there anything else
will that be all
is there anything
else? She is waiting for
our
money and my
answer.
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