Signs and Wonders
During the end of the world
she was sleeping with her algebra teacher.
Over the past month she had been showing
more leg and less interest in differential equations.
At home the windows were boarded up.
They ate nothing but soup
with fewer and fewer ingredients.
She lost pounds and all her inhibitions.
He fumbled trying to undo the tiny pearly
buttons on her shirt. She worried about her
tatty knickers and faded bra, wishing she'd
invested in a matching set, but she had thought
such a bold move would mean her daydreams
would definitely never come true.
Plus most places were hard to get to
with all the landmines and barbed wire.
Her clothes were on the floor now and
he was finally inside her, their breathing in sync
with the low whistle in the sky.
The earth moved and three, four houses
fell through the crack and became
one with the hot molten centre of everything.
They lay face to face in the weak sulphurous light.
It could be that there were clean white sheets
on the hospital bed now
but the mind cannot maintain such thoughts
and so her eyes sought out the thin line
of tight black curls that led down
from his navel to the end of the world.
Judith Kingston is a Dutch writer living in the UK. Her poems have been published in various online magazines such as Barren Magazine, Riggwelter, Kissing Dynamite and Piccaroon, as well as the Fly on the Wall Press print anthology Persona Non Grata. Besides writing, she translates, teaches and occasionally narrates audiobooks.