A wild storm shakes our house, winds howling into every crevice
and our cringing faces,

until windows splinter, bricks crumble, timbers groan and fall,
and I cry out for my husband, who says this, too, will end.

But now the foundation slides away, tumbling toward the sea,
while the sea pours toward us like a giant waterfall,

everything disappearing into a black hole in earth’s crust,
as if the planet is devouring itself,

losing its place among the stars —
closing its radiant blue-green eye forever.

When the storm eases, we stand in a line of shaggy humans,
ruled by space aliens who have made us slaves.

My husband’s strong, but I’m too old for hard labor. I won’t survive,
and I don’t want to live with so much so different from before.

Not that we were always happy, or safe, but at least no one
forced us into slavery. Or did they?

We cried, as I recall, and many of us bled and lost our way —
but that was business as usual: war, famine, murder, and greed.

We called it death, and begged our gods to let us live forever.
They begged to live forever, too, and failed.