Cynthia Atkins: Apocalypse in Twitter-Verse 

Devil’s truth, my brain is the size 

of a pea, cannot hold 5,000 

babies, dogs, vacations, comments,

circumcisions, breakfast muffins, 

bald head radiations. Here’s a sad fact, 

people are dying while other people 

sip their mocha lattes. All the thresholds,

golden anniversaries, the Oscars of stay-at-home 

celebrity, pass by like fast food signs. 

I am wearing sweatpants, face unwashed, 

teeth unbrushed, but I’ve posted 

a photo of me all dolled-up in a fancy 

sequined dress.   I am just one of the throngs 

of sad people looking for the corporeal bottom 

of human loneliness. Is that, finally, 

the ache we shed with the last breath. —

Fogged faces passing on a train, trees 

and smoke and hills.  Screens amok in thousands 

and thousands of sorrowful rooms.  

I am one of the many. I am here. 

I am the size of a clip of hair. 

I was promised solitude, but my navigation 

system is collapsing. Taste my essence, 

irrevocable losses, time stolen from 

old coloring books—My wax crayons 

tallied real marks. The sky is eclipsed.  

We are pinholes. We are flagships.  

I do have opinions, but no one cares to hear them. 

Long ago, we smelled like fresh cut grass

and played outside until the dark.  

---

Copyright 2023 Cynthia Atkins

Cynthia Atkins‘ many books include Still-Life With God (Saint Julian Press 2020). She lives on the Maury River of Rockbridge County, Virginia, with artist Phillip Welch and their family.