THE 101, SOUTH, 6:48 AM, MARCH
How can one watch a California
seaside sunrise and not believe
in apocalypse?
The world can only burn
through beauty so fast.
The ocean says its hello-goodbye
as if Hawaiian, aloha-ing along
the beach as if it wanted
to bring it somewhere. And it does.
But the metaphor of the tide
pulls at every poem
as it rushes to its page end.
Humans are such failed things.
For this freeway should be
strewn with parked cars, each driver
out with their mouths agape
for once just silent, for once just.
George Yatchisin is the author of Feast Days (Flutter Press 2016) and The First Night We Thought the World Would End (Brandenburg Press 2019). His poems have been published in journals including Antioch Review, Askew, and Zocalo Public Square. He is co-editor of the anthology Rare Feathers: Poems on Birds & Art (Gunpowder Press 2015), and his poetry appears in anthologies including Reel Verse: Poems About the Movies (Everyman’s Library 2019).
All rights © George Yatchisin
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