one evening’s doomsday

began with a splitting

sky, ducking

into a bar moments

before the torrent broke.

we, only just preserved

from drenching havoc.

doomsday is brief and impermanent.

doomsday is sitting beneath an awning

and getting drunk, biting into the cherry.

a stranger in town for one

evening is talking of our eventual end

ushering doomsday prophecies

twined with the exhaling

cigarette smoke. tap ash

and consider the superintelligence

sending us straight to hell

in dystopian underground.

deep drag and reconsider the greater

schema of artists because perhaps

our transience is all remaining

hope.

grind the ember down

and reconsider the renaissance.

enough, we laugh, shake

our heads. doomsday is fleeting

tonight. cataclysmic ruin

has yet to touch our embrace,

no end grasped in my hand,

only the collar of his jacket.

no destruction on his lips,

only mine, and cold rain,

on the street corner, kiss the doomsday

away, send it crawling back

to unwelcome permanence.