The end of the world was a story
we told ourselves to help us sleep,

and some days it happened on the beach,
with all the usual smells –

peanuts and grilled meat, scented oils,
salt and bodies rolling in the sand,

while other times we saw a cliff, children
leaping from a great height into a sea of cloud,

but we never believed in fire and flood,
outmoded terrors ending with roaches and wolves.