'May 1st (or, The Living End and its Discontent)', by Rosa Marin
“It’s like I’ve gone through the looking glass.
Never to return again.”
I loved both of them,
but that doesn’t mean they weren’t stupid.
One of them thought the cinema died in 1992,
and the other only offered gas station nihilism.
They’re both bald now.
People dress nice when the end is in sight
or maybe
they gain this halo, you know,
and it imbues them with divine knowledge of the aesthetic
or maybe
it’s us that are imbued
with a filter made of foreknowledge
so our eyes may accurately measure the weight in a walk
the effort beneath running one’s hands through their hair,
as they glance at no particular spot on the floor,
so that something will tell us when their smile leaves their face for the last time—
people don’t look out of windows for the buildings