Eschatology

Barring a series of improbable accidents
such as, perhaps, an insurrection

among the meat packers at the local
chicken processing facility, the dissolution

of the centuries-long pact between
estuaries and reservoirs, rodent diabetes

brought about by an interstate shipping
disaster scattering fruit punch pouches

through prairie dog country, or (one supposes
the most likely occurrence) the deregulation

of standard aglet sizes, the world will continue
to spin, coiling its long tether.

Should we be so unfortunate, said tether
would one day snap under the strain

and vault with an artillery report toward
the incredible heavens to which that bituminous

thread’s attached, whereas a catastrophe
of sufficient size might permit the earth to rest,

reverse course, and, as the line unwinds, descend
from whatever brute fact we’ve all been swinging.

*

Joshua Jones received his MFA in creative writing from the University of Massachusetts, Boston. He’s currently a Ph.D. candidate at The University of North Texas. His poems and essays have appeared in journals like Image, Southwest Review, and Salamander. He and his wife wrangle dachshunds in Frisco, TX.