End Times

i am learning how to tomorrow myself

the climate is putting
on a sundress
and i tiptoe the dotted
line between my
mind and my body

i, too, dress lightly
lying by the pool
my skin collecting
melanoma like coins

i am learning to wear sunscreen
to imagine tomorrow
as something i am a part of

reading, zinc-slathered
sipping green tea and
smelling chlorine
what a funny way to wait
for the end of the world

here, by the pool
in this local warming
i am lying beside
all that will outlast us

i am learning to eat
even though the icecaps
are melting

the half-asleep, sunburnt man
a few pool chairs away
moves into the shade
he, too, is planning for tomorrow
a woman, leaving, remembers
to recycle her coke can

tonight, under the cool
damp blanket of the dark
i get in bed with
the unlit match
of myself and wait
for tomorrow
we are sleeping.

Olivia Stowell is a graduate student at Villanova University pursuing her Masters in English. Her recent poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in The Albion Review, FIVE:2:ONE's #thesideshow, Madcap Review, Right Hand Pointing, and The Merrimack Review.