The Doomsday Clock
It was two minutes until doomsday
and she struggled to finish her text.
it was an awkward time to break it off
but she couldn’t plunge into eternity
with her lover, still attached to her wrist.
And he waited patiently as he looked
at the clock, hoping for x’s and o’s,
deluded and hopelessly clueless.
when the bomb dropped,
they’d be engaged — for sure, he thought.
With edward-scissorhands, the minutes cut precariously
like darkened shadows upon a frozen tundra,
and the hour will strike like an asp,
the sting will melt the counterfeit humans.
one last cloud of dust, for angels to sweep
into the dustbin, after eternity is settled.
Two minutes before, politicians try to knock
each other out, shouting down the seconds,
with loud colors in dresses and ties, pretty hair
in permanent dye and handsomely slicked back.
they very much doubt the veracity of the doomsday note.
Only one human cries, tears falling upon a seed
that would never rise, a form that turned in her belly
with protruding arms and legs. she would lay hands
on him and love him with her palm until the clock struck
Midnight. and Cinderella will never again lose
her glass slipper, no prince will anxiously search for her,
a pumpkin carriage will vanish without any inhabitants.
Two minutes, enough time to chew off fingernails,
to unwind your tattletail tongue, down shots,
drive yourself into a wall, to call your mother —
now that you have nothing to lose. humans
Before extinction, collaboratively can produce
many sins before they cut the earth’s crust loose
Countdown...starts...now
Emile Pinet’s Doomsday Clock Contest
2/4/2018
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