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Doomsday

By Amy Gerstler b. 1956 Amy Gerstler

The dark that’s gathering strength

these days is submissive,

kinky, silken, willing;

stretched taut as a trampoline.

World events rattle by like circus

trains we wave at occasionally,

as striped, homed and spotted

heads poke out their windows.

Feels like I’m wearing a corset,

though I haven’t a stitch on.

Burn the place setting I ate from,

OK? and destroy the easy chair

I languished in. Let birds

unravel my lingerie

for nesting materials.

Fingers poised on the piano keys,

I can’t think what to play.

A dirge, a fugue?

What, exactly, are crimes

against nature? How many

calories are consumed while

lolling in this dimness,

mentally lamenting the lack

of anything to indicate

some faint mirage of right-

mindedness has been sighted

on the horizon? The world

is full of morbid thinkers,

miserable workers and compulsive

doodlers. Darling, my mother

used to croon, you were a happy

accident, like the discovery

of penicillin. When I sense

the zillions of cells in my body

laboring together, such grand

fatigue sweeps over me.

Once in a blue moon I smell

the future’s breath,

that purgatorial whiff

shot through with the scent

of burnt hair, like when sailors

have been drifting at sea

for a long time and suddenly

they see gulls circling

and the ripe composty odor

of land unfurls in the air,

but they’ve no idea whether

an oasis of breadfruit

and pineapple awaits them

or an enclave of cannibals.

Amy Gerstler, “Doomsday” from Nerve Storm. Copyright © 1993 by Amy Gerstler. Reprinted with the permission of Penguin, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. For online information about other Penguin Group (USA) books and authors, see www.penguin.com.

Source: Nerve Storm (1993)

Biography

Known for its wit and complexity, Amy Gerstler's poetry deals with themes such as redemption, suffering, and survival. Author of over a dozen poetry collections, two works of fiction, and various articles, reviews, and collaborations with visual artists, Gerstler won the 1991 National Book Critics Circle Award in Poetry for Bitter Angel (1990). Her early work, including White Marriage/Recovery (1984), was highly praised. . . .

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