2 November 2008 | Vol. 8, No. 3

2012

All of the crabshacks are burning,

gulls are circling

the open crates of avocados in the snow

out beyond

even the earth's gravity.


This must be the judgment. A ladder

reaching us from a nursery of suns

once spun by collisions

along the grazing edge of Sagittarius

and the Milky Way. The plate galaxies

had not been so lucky. Bill Knott,


that lovely man, who nudged Jim Wright

back from the string of leopard trout, says

a calendar is just a colander,

just an anxious hourglass—   water

trading for sand,

sand trading for oil. Now, is this


the end in stone wheeling above our heads, the

great firesale

of the fat Chinese sow-dog?


Say it slowly with peace in your heart,

"I sure the fuck hope not."

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About the author:

Norman Dubie's most recent collection of poems, Insomniac Liar of Topo, was just published by Copper Canyon Press. He lives in Arizona.

For further reading:

See the complete list of work by Norman Dubie at 42opus. Browse the contents of 42opus Vol. 8, No. 3, where "2012" ran on November 2, 2008. List other work with these same labels: poetry.

42opus is an online magazine of the literary arts.

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