Big Finish
by Kimberly Johnson

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Now that the last shaft of sunset has collapsed

into that rubble of cloud, let’s dust off

and see how bright the stars are, the disclosed

vault spinning like a discoball been drilled

smack into Polaris. My oracle’s

a bullhorn for the endtimes, portending

wars and rumors of wars in the stars’ course

headlong through the heavens. And even though

the astrophysicists as in chorus

to the oracle declare that all this sparkle,

every spectacular atom of it,

is a death, the expired light of bodies

that have burned themselves down to nothing,

yet they are so bright, and shimmery,

and to shimmy seems their light to me,

sequins tilting into a spotlight.

Don’t they move like jubilation on their wheel?

And don’t they flash with brash abandon?

And if finally they should quit their spheres

and fall upon us, their apocalypse

will surely seem a shower not of wormwood

but confetti, gleeful streaking

down the sackcloth dark to pronounce our doom

a wop bop a loo-bop, a wop-bam-boom.

"Big Finish," from UNCOMMON PRAYER by Kimberly Johnson. Copyright © 2014 by Kimberly Johnson. Used by permission of Persea Books.