Sometimes I conjure
the after after the end:

our plaster cities bent and broken,
entire skylines scythed as flowers,

skyscrapers rent into oblivion,
lofty hotels and office towers

leveled to dark flatline—
the monotone of a final

wind barreling down,
inexorable, with no one

to hear its elegiac howl.

I picture myself ensconced
in an underground parking

garage scrounging to survive,
dismantling abandoned cars

piece by piece to pass the time, or
curled on an improbable mattress

remembering how I once watched
two birds quarreling over a piece

of pizza crust on the sidewalk
as I walked home from work

and thought to myself
as they startled into air

this is not the end.

Sometimes I conjure
the after as it ends:

when in an instant

every last bird rises
into the sky as one—

a cloud of feathers and bone
devoured by a heartless sun.