The Fiddleback

poems by Emma Ramey

It’s Always The Next Apocalypse

I saw this show this morning
about dinosaurs coming through
a wrinkle in time and I wept.
I know tonight I will close my eyes
and see very large teeth dripping with drool.
I need bars on my windows for protection,
need a friend, someone to hold me
at night when I whimper.
This is serious. Just like the sun.
It means business and one day
it’s going to reach out and grab us all.

People Watching

A moustache and wide open mouth,
and do you see it, the world.

Maybe just shadow not stache
not mouth. Still whole.

What do we see in each
breath, there a carousel.

His winged pigs and angry tigers
rising and falling in circles.

What a breath! they may say.
Gold and chipped paint and children

feigning amusement.
Maybe asthma maybe emphysema.

That child next to him
laughs a glacier—

do you see it, the ice age
the ancient, the melting

with each breath.
The world, whole.