from 101 End-Time Recipes
Caroline Noble Whitbeck

1.

"For, behold,
the day cometh
that shall burn
as an oven."

2.

Start with the simple cuts: the soft-cup
bra atop the chainlink, snags
of fascia-white plastic. Her hair, wet, whipped back
into perfect fang-points. The knife
passing cleanly through the spumoni. Then,
within the space of this argument, let loose your milk.

3.

"Why don't you
rinse your dead
child's hair in blond
champagne?"

4.

Interred in the basement and swaddled
in burlap, the fig still
sent up its white reach. Etiolated
early vegetables heaped in soil like
tetanus. Tenderly
plaiting the husk for a bookmark,
thusly.

5.

Into plowshares
into pruning hooks
into sporks even
every
spatulate
spreader tongue depressor spoonlike
cavity
punched
from the lid what
'comes with' what we comfortably
relinquish licks
licked

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