In my fortieth year, the apocalypse
began to complete itself, even though
the younger ones tried to stop it,
ones older that we were had already
dug the pit we all were falling into.

i’m not wise, but at one time I was
considered pretty, and old ladies
in markets used to pinch my cheeks
but I think it was just because my eyes
were blue. that was also a pretty
troubled time to be alive but I didn’t know
it yet.

my children will remember more bad air days
than good, have barely had a chance to look
at the stars. their childhood covered with a viral
overload, laminated haze. when they play outside,
they built forts like I did thirty years ago.
I also hid a knife in my pocket, learned how
not to slice off my thumb. a sharpened stick
is a sharpened stick, in any decade.

at the mall we go to eat sushi, see soft children
and soft adults ride up and down the escalator.
the food gets delivered to us on a conveyer belt
and we order more than we can eat, wash it down
with melon milk and sweet plum juice
the eel is especially tender, my son says.

outside, the new year ticks over like a metronome,
and we wander back home a different way we came,
shivering under the streetlights but hugging each others
shoulders, wondering together if the japanese bathhouse
is open, the pools still hot.