Archive >VOL. 20, NO. 1

Peter Krumbach

Misprized

It is good to be slow. Walk
at leisure, the pace deciding
what beauty the mind marks —
the subtleties of sameness,
the stepped-on black-eyed Susan
shaped like the face of a saint
with a toothpick in his mouth.
I’m always late for the apocalypse.
It takes a while to shape up,
dress well, to fill the stomach
just right for what’s coming.
When I arrive, what’s left
smells of hemlock and indignation,
the ruins smoldering, a few
last figures on fire, fencing
with ghosts. The sun is veiled,
resembling the moon. By the time
I arrive, God is elsewhere,
stoned out of his skull, licking
icing off a Bundt cake,
fingers slick with donut glaze.
But oh, the silence. The silence —
the one misprized thing
about demise. The only thing
I can never be late for.
The song played after the end,
same as the one unheard
before the beginning.