One devastating natural disaster
is generally enough
for the country to deal with—remember FEMA?
Remember rescue workers driving
from out of state with truckloads of food
and bottled water?

No one drives these days.
The roads are blanketed in ash, now rain-mixed
cement. Buildings, cars, bridges all
collapsed under the weight
of fine rock, and the rain
falls sulphuric these days—remember crops?
Remember going to the grocery store
to buy flour for baking? There is no wheat

these days; there is no sunlight either.
The newly-wintered sky is a sickly color—not even gray, but
the color of old flesh fallen in, the pallor
of a fever-ravaged cheek—dark sometimes
and darker. There is no moon
hanging in our skies, but the tides
still feel her pull, so I suppose she still exists.

There was no warning
televised on national news. I'm sure
there were signs—perhaps the ground quaked
and grew in height. Perhaps Old Faithful
halted its clockwork exhalation, perhaps its breath stopped,
before all hell—to quote my father—broke loose.

All hell is violence, rocks shot
into the air, rocketing up thirty miles before falling
like molten rain on the West. All hell is an ash cloud
covering the continent. All hell is desert turned tundra, rainforest
turned wasteland. All hell is missing the last family
vacation to one of the last national parks.
All hell is surviving.