If this were the last day

How would it end:

Mass hysteria, pious reflection

Or hedonistic revenge?

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I would find my loved ones, as I could,

First and gaze in each pair of eyes,

Memorize every lineament, tips

Trace each contour of each face.

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Then I would find my favourite poems

And if they’d let me, hold in turn each pair of hands,

Drop each word clear and slow one last time.

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And as we listened in our clutches

We would remember the others

Who had preceded us and join

The circle of their memories around us

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Like druids place rocks.

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And as the sun sank, at one point some second

Would refract through our prism

All the joys that would be lost.

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Till the end came in whichever form it must

And we’d close our eyes on the world

And clench each other into dust. 

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The Last Day published in Foliate Oak Literary Journal, December 2010