End Game
I cannot hear the traffic
on the highway a mile away
anymore, nor the noisy wrens
in the apple tree.
Down the street,
those beautiful twin girls
are walking slowly
hand in hand,
singing “Jesus saves”.
Their strange mother
is on her knees
in the garden again.
All the world around me
seems greener than usual,
the sky cast with an eerie glow.
Somewhere within me,
a quickening in my heart
tells me what the dead
already know.
It’s a strange sort of
quiet this morning, like
the air before a storm,
or the moment
of a baby’s birth,
just before you hear
that trumpeting cry
heralding his arrival.
Now the wind is picking up,
and my dog seems troubled.
None of my appliances
seem to be working;
everything has lost power.
There’s something about
to happen, I can feel it.
Claire Juno, © 2020
vindicating vashti 