was about all that I could muster—on the question

of whether this world, which I prefer to think of in the past

tense, will flourish—though the first of the last fires hasn’t even

started yet—has it?

Maybe the past tense because it implies

survival—back then plus but now, as if the future

had already happened and you—you!—had made it out

alive—

into midday living room peace—

into two o’clock April light, you and a trailing

coleus—survivor too!—each leaf like a dab

of dried blood

on a scalloped pad

of green . . .

Sirens, in the distance, fading. Sirens

in the distance, above a wreck of ships, perched

where literature starts

with war, and lost men, heroes

enticed to death by birds

with the heads of girls, myth opening its blood—

drenched

wings—

Maybe it wasn’t Future Death hounding me but

Past Ends—not popular Apocalypse but

cracked Atlantis, golem

Ozymandias, all the millions millions really dead

in ruined capitals gone to ash and dream—Maybe it was my

mother’s mother’s

scapegoat trauma blood

keening—

And suddenly—I could see them!—every empire that ever

rose and fell spread out on discs

across an infinite plane called Absolute Now like

records spinning—all playing the same song,

track by track—Ruin

by Better Tech, Ruin by Hubris, Ruin

by Appetite Amok—and from this vantage History

looks like a choice, and I have to ask, now, in the present

tense, Why

choose the past

as the future—