The Beginning Of Our End

After Ada Limón

More than a fourth world war breaking out,
more than forests melting to ash and grey sludge,
whole cities to graves of wires and iron, houses
to scorch marks on stone, it’s their wrinkling skin
that got me. When they had blown the sky asunder
and the sun’s full warmth came at them like knives,
they knocked twice, the third time, sent down tears
in glass tubes and our king unlocked the surface
of the sea. First came their young, wide eyed, hungry,
skin stitch-thin, thinning in our world, then their old,
frail, wiser now, regretful of the horror they fostered
in their world, then their sick, in shock, shattered
by it all, reaching for bubbles as though they were
pearls. Fine then, we’ll take them, the ocean seemed
to say, if they can learn our ways, we will take them all.