Happy Hour

When the doomsday asteroid sails to strike,
elephants of the blazing plains
will gather about a baobab
and dance on their hind legs;
ostriches will fly for the first
above the circling leathern skulls,
and birds that flame the most in hottest regions
will molt every sunset feather into empty evening grey.

When the asteroid's burning belly burrows into the plates,
turning them to tsunamis of molten glass,
herds of sasquatches will hurtle
from the forested hills in flames;
rank with sulphur, they will bear down
like skunk comets, down the hillsides, reeking;
burning twiggy, knotted fur, wailing cries,
howling a sound that will cause
any within hearing to instantly die.

When the ashen plume gushes up with the hemorrhaging
of the earth, unknown swimmers from the seas
will surface on the naked shores:
eyes like beads and eyes like bulbs,
teeth like needles and lips like frogs,
slimy, skeletal or luminescent,
muscular or whippish, crushing or zinging
with lightning tails of death.
They will proclaim the sins of the highest towers -
creatures forever unseen, swimming
the blackest, emptiest, ocean depths

that will become unhoused and waterless.