some of us think we’ll close the deal tonight
when we fire up a doomsday machine in France
and atoms open up
and let themselves go
and maybe we’ll all burst open with them;

or maybe it will come ten years from now,
or twenty, when we drown in our own waste;
or maybe when the earth finally opens its gates
and sends another flood to pull us down;
if we close the deal that way we may be wet with more than tears.

one thing is true: when we close the deal the sky will be blue,
surviving birds will sing, remaining animals will chuckle
in their furry throats, cockroaches will stretch
and slap each other on the backs even as we turn toward each other
and try to decide if it will be worth living one more day

if we have to slit the throats of children right then to gain it,
or will we decide instead to stroke their hair and tell them
that all the promises we made about making a better world
were just like drawing knives across their necks? will they
beg us to kill them before we close the deal?

when we close the deal (and maybe, just maybe, we already have)
will we still wonder how it happened, or will we take one moment
to recognize how we failed? or will we take that moment to lie one more time
and turn to the ones standing beside us, trembling before the awesome End,
and say, “I’m sure it will all come out right”?

Len says there’s a sea of garbage
in the central Pacific.
Seal pups
on the beaches there
play with tampon applicators,
swallow them,
are blocked up
and then die.

Just above us
on the beach
is a dead sea bird.
I’ll say it’s a gull because
it’s the only sea bird
I know by name.
It’s probably
as soft as it looks,

but I won’t touch it.
Death needs
to be kept
at arm’s length,
just beyond
my fingertips.
It needs to stay out there,
far away from here.

There’s no need for me to know what killed that bird.
I’ll walk the beach, pick up smooth stones,
flip the flat ones
over the surface of the water
two, three, maybe five times
until they sink at last
to safety on the bottom,
where I can imagine

they’ll rest on clean sand,
no plastic there
among the scallops
and the horseshoe crabs
that will live forever on the bottom
of the perfect harbor
that shines and ripples today
with the slight breeze that heralds an approaching storm,

glad we made it to the island
ahead of the wind and the rain
and that we may sleep through it tonight
and get up tomorrow and read poems
to smiling faces on the bluff above
the beach, the gull, the stones,
the sand full of white shards
I will not speak of again.

All people can be divided into two groups:
those who divide people into two groups,
and those who do not.

We call the people who divide people into two groups
"them," and we call those who do not
"us."  Sometimes, we call "them" "the Others."

Let us say some things about the Others:
they are grown fat with their unjust ways.  They
hate us.  They are the source of the Smell — ha,

they are overripe with it.  If you were to crack open
the "O" at the beginning of the word "Others," it would be
as though a durian had been split in a closet

and left to rot.  In fact, the Others
are the splitters of all fruit.  All carcasses
are split by them too.  We

are the stitchers of that which is split.  All people, then, may be split
into two groups: the splitters of things, and those
who guard that which can be split.  We call the Splitters

the others, the guardians are called "us." The splitters
are known for their cunning, their conspiracies, their incoherent
justice.  If you were to straighten out the "S" at the beginning

of the word "Splitters," you see that it is a snake’s spine
and they have been holding the serpent close to their breasts
since the beginning of days.  Venom is their milk, and we

are their silent milkmaids.  We are the ones who carry
the venom to their tables.   It sloshes onto us and we are burned
daily.  All people, in fact, may be divided into two groups:

those who are burned, and those who are burning us,
or those who are poisoned and those who live on poison, or those who
worship division and those who pray for shielding and healing.

All people can be divided into two groups.
These groups are called "us" and "the Others."
It is as lamentable as It is observable, and it can be proven as follows:

all people can be divided into two groups —
those who divide people into two groups,
and the dead. 

— headline on a news story, August 29, 2008

Matthew, who covers accountants,
is sharpening pencils, placing each one
into a lead lined box
so they won’t float away this time.

Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael, the messengers,
are rehearsing. Brass is their specialty
and they’re dropping a little swing into their fanfares
because — well, just because.

Anthony of Padua lays out the magnifying glasses,
the dowsing rods, the long poles for probing
deep water, the black bags for the recoveries.
He is the finder.  He will be ready.

Everyone’s busy — Genevieve, disasters; Jude, desperate causes;
Martin de Porres, race relations; Joseph, of course,
overseeing both death and social justice, is working out,
getting in shape, doubling up on his reps.

Me?  I’m Anthony the Abbot.  This is Elizabeth Seton,
and to her right is Jerome Emiliani — in charge of
gravediggers, lost parents, and orphans, respectively.
We’re on standby, coming to you live

from a place somewhere nearby, somewhere hot and sticky
and not exactly forgotten, somewhere not exactly anyone’s idea
of Heaven anymore.  Bernadine, who has responsibility
for public relations, tells us not to mention the name

just in case anyone should draw conclusions about us
and our readiness last time.  I’ll say this much: sometimes,
we do our best and the worst still happens.  When it does,
it’s usually because we counted on help from those

with boots on the ground, no matter how soggy it gets
they’ve still gotta do their part if we’re to be of any service
at all.  That didn’t happen.  We’ll see what goes down this time,
I guess.  Foresight doesn’t fall into our jurisdiction.

Oh, in case you were curious — yes, there are two among us
who bear those names.  They’re old, and we don’t trust them
with anything of consequence anymore; don’t confuse them
with their namesakes, though.  We cause nothing to happen:

we’re all about the aftermath.

This time of year, when the good weather
is winding down, swans appear on ponds and lakes
everywhere, their glorious, Art Nouveau necks
slipping through the mirrors
into the brown-green muck below.

They don’t want you to remember
that they rose to this
from their birth as sin-ugly ashy cygnets,
that they rode on their parents’ handsome backs
until they were ready to take their places,

so if you get too close
they will attack, breaking your limbs
with angelic weapons, fervently trying
to cut you open with their cruddy,
razored mouths, working every ounce of their weight

to keep you from thinking of the way
their eyes are black, all black,
with no light shining through from inside;
to keep you from thinking of anything except
the arc of their feeding, their classical poise.