Bombs Bringing Us Together
If the end of the world comes,
there won’t be anything I can do
except stand on the porch and listen
to the Grackles gulp their last song,
hoping that on the next try,
humanity will succeed,
a rose without any thorns,
kindness will be what truly matters.
If the end of the world comes tomorrow,
I will still wake up and make my coffee
because we can’t face the apocalypse without caffeine,
to hell with work, taking out the trash,
and eating leafy green vegetables,
I’ll watch the bombs with my morning brew
outside, distant echoes of the life I should have
lived, blow up as I laugh.
I never should have pretended to be normal.
If the end of the world comes next week,
I’ll remind everyone of the Secret of Fatima,
Mary told the children in Portugal that Russia would end
the world, they could never
tell anyone except the Pope.
Now we know the world ends with a gasp,
and not a thunder bolt.
If I had been my true self,
I would have been wild and brilliant,
I could have been a Centaur,
Instead, I’m a person who has never left where I am,
and life has gone on without me
Let the bombs come and blow us all away
We were never good at taking care of the earth,
We don’t deserve her attention,
she never loved anyone except the Moon,
and the sun and the stars,
looking outward to find bodies
more inspiring and intelligent
than the children that grow on the land,
the ones that ruined her,
and took her beauty away,
when we decided that envy and hatred and greed
were more important than Love,
and only about proving we’re right
regarding secrets that the eyes in the sky hold –
will we ever get the earth back?
Only the clouds know, and they’re not sharing the truth
because why would they?
They have better things to do.
Shannon O’Connor holds an MFA in Writing and Literature from Bennington College. She has been published in Oddball Magazine, 365 Tomorrows, The Rye Whiskey Review, and others. She is the chairperson of the Boston Chapter of the National Writers Union. In her spare time, she enjoys playing the tin whistle and dressing up as Amelia Earhart, not always at the same time.
