After the Rapture

veritas sequitur esse

Nobody drowned in the flood.

In the beginning, the sky could not fail.

The first raindrops took men

By surprise. Everyone died

Of shock. But when man was born

Again, he liked words enough

To see if wilted might indeed modify

Trees, so he drove toward an edge,

Ran out of gas, turned back

To look at the desert, and like a nation

Testing its best weapons

In locations empty, unmarked,

Vast, he shredded himself

With glass, spilled into and over

Unnameable stretches of land,

Concrete, water, hands. Then,

The real killing began. The cacti

Leaked and lost their needles. A few

Men prayed. And we prayed to win.