Let us laugh at death until our throats get sore.

Let us row to Helgoland, an island

with seven stone gates and seven stone angels

blowing trumpets, or are they trombones,

the slide of God’s left shoulder

announcing the cessation of time,

the end of the known world, as he unhitches the cables

holding Earth in place and lets it drift off into space.

Hello/good-by. Quickly now

before our names drawn in the sand

are washed away. The sky, dying in your arms,

is threatening rain. Tiredness now

and breath with nowhere to climb, but up.