Wash Your Mouth

I’ll tell you a story of a silly young thing:

a mouthwash cap all plastic and clean,

essential to breath staying freshly pristine,

adrift at the end of the world.

The cap sat atop spunky Sophie’s marble sink

white eyeliner, claw clips, and earrings like links

rested subsumed in Maison Francis mist

sweetness fogging the mirror in sleepy non-resist

a toilet at the edge of the end of the world.

It sat until Sophie found a new brand

and tossed out the mouthwash with one bored hand

and the cap rolled onto the Nike-filled street

scuffed by leather boots, Jordans, kitten-heeled feet

forsaken at the end of the world.

Kicked and trodden until the ground began to shake

Poseidon himself with an angry stomach ache

umbrella pants no use, Soph had no time to yell

before a Tsunami engulfed her city straight to hell

a wall of waves at the end of the world.

As the pH rose and the acid sleet rained

a small crew of critters, the floating cap gained

microorganisms adapted and clung to this ship

an Ark of sorts, unnatural but uniquely equipped

to outlast the end of the world.

After tumbling in the ocean forty years and fickle nights,

the strange glow of land cast a radioactive light

onto the cap, which was thrust upon a shore

mutated by carbon-cover, Mother verse man’s decisive war

at once faced by the end of the world.

A silhouette of a cellophane poncho approached

our dear cap, and with a plastic claw hand, it was poked

and quickly stuffed into a glowing twine bag

the woman scuffled away like a crab to a crag

surviving the end of the world.

With a spunk reminiscent of long-dead Sophie,

this host of New Earth never passed on trophies

like nubs of plastic for macro-Scorpion skin boots

for scurrying up yellow Gingkos to spy for safe fruits.

And so is the tale of a cap meant to purify,

blindly tossed away on a washed-clean lie

of an endless second chance to make amends with our home

a new fashion arises, a new woman’s genome

and her boots at the end of the world.

Writer: Riley Card

Strike Out,

St. Louis

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