When Society Collapses

What to
save? What
to keep?

We won’t know right away.
Things will feel normal, folks
will still be driving around,

mouths open, lost tourists.
Prices will still be rising,
found inflation.

There will be fewer birds
and no bees but most of us
won’t notice until we receive

amber-alerts announcing them missing
prompting at least one guy to say,
Isn’t no bee stings a good thing?

This will
become
a meme.

The news will cover three stories
daily: a murder, a fire, a politician.
All details will be the same,

only the names will change. The President
in his bunker will look like he’s traveling,
spending hours in hair and makeup

before taping a series of TED talks
via green screen. Most of us will tell
end-of-the-world jokes as if we’re not the reason.

Laughter, forced or faked
will be the medicinal veil we hide behind
as the veins of the nation rip open

on political quakes and pricing
tsunamis swallow our earnings, savings
credit accounts, entire marketplace.

Volcanoes of disagreement
will spew fire and gases like fighting fists
choking all who can’t afford masks,

gas, groceries, mortgages,
39.99% interest rates or any of the
relevant equipment

needed to exist and get heard
in the right room where the steering
committees sit and decide: no change again.

Out in the streets, when we receive
bulletins setting the doomsday clocks
to sooner dates, we will probably

scroll past as if we are brave
instead of incapacitated
and depressed thinking

what we never
thought we’d think. Perhaps
people as a species just

do not
deserve
a save.