A poem by Simone Beaubien:
The Last Man on Earth
"Seeing as the world is coming to an end," he asks,
"I was wondering if you’d be willing to go to dinner
with me?" This close to the Apocalypse, cell phone
reception is terrible and I have to ask him to
repeat himself twice.
I tell him yes, but, so as not to appear too eager,
we schedule for two weeks ahead, on a Tuesday.
By the time the date rolls around, the Four Horsemen
have already ridden and the tapas bar is a cantilevered
pile of rubble.
We squat over the steaming bricks and talk about
Barcelona: how the tiny, pale tentacles of the squid
curl in their exquisite
vermillion oils;
the sweet, smoky egg of the crème Catalan;
and the Parc Guell, its lovely curves made of delicate,
shattered things. Probably
no one has a key to it anymore.
We decide to go out again, this time on a Friday.
It’s hard to tell when Friday is, so we agree it
will be the next time the Widower Murphy
serves fish at the new common kitchen.
The Widower Murphy dies of the shaking fever
two days later, but we go out anyway. I didn’t intend
to dress up, but I’m pretty sure I’m wearing the last
blue jeans in the world.
At the end of the night, he says,
"Seeing as all the condoms in the world will expire
in two to four years, I was wondering if you’d go to bed
with me tonight." There isn’t a bed. I make him lie down
first on the burning sands and, afterwards, I pick the
white, bubbled crust from his buttocks and shoulder blades.
We can’t make up our minds to go out again,
so he just never leaves. It’s okay.
There’s no place left to go.
