Everybody’s talking

about The Looming Pointless Catastrophe

how pointless it is

how much it looms.

What a catastrophe it’s going to be.

‍

We’re stockpiling for the short term,

the long term we don’t know.

No matter how much you prepare

there’s always something new looming,

like the Unexploded Grief Bomb

we found buried deep

out in back of the house.

‍

It’s been there for decades,

we figured a previous owner,

but I’m not so sure.

Besides, it’s ours now.

‍

It’s on some sort of timer

we have no idea.

Thing is, it’s going to explode

sooner

or later

(hard to say which would be worse).

‍

Someone else’s Grief Bomb

went off down the street last night.

There were sirens, lights, and weeping.

So there’s that.

We know about that.

We’ll take a casserole or something,

as one does.

‍

I have to admit,

I resent all this Looming.

Try not to, but there it is:

life’s a bomb on a timer.

‍

But I mean everything’s fine more or less,

if you don’t count what’s looming.

After all,

whatcha gonna do?

This appeared in Geist 116 as part of a suite titled All the Broken Things, along with One Day and Traffic Reports in Strange Cities.