#MIDDLEBURY
To Live in the Zombie Apocalypse
Burlee Vang
The moon will shine for God
knows how long.
As if it still matters. As if someone
is trying to recall a dream.
Believe the brain is a cage of light
& rage. When it shuts off,
something else switches on.
There’s no better reason than now
to lock the doors, the windows.
Turn off the sprinklers
& porch light. Save the books
for fire. In darkness,
we learn to read
what moves along the horizon,
across the periphery of a gun scope –
the flicker of shadows,
the rustling of trash in the body
of cities long emptied.
Not a soul lives
in this house &
this house & this
house. Go on, stiffen
the heart, quicken
the blood. To live
in a world of flesh
& teeth, you must
learn to kill
what you love,
& love what can die.
About this poem
“I find myself constantly thinking about the survival of my little family and the different ways this world could end. Maybe that’s not normal, but that’s what I’m forced to think about when I’m stuck on the freeway for hours, trying to get home to my wife and kids. Bad traffic tends to inspire me to write about the apocalypse.” – Burlee Vang
About Burlee Vang
Burlee Vang is the author of “The Dead I Know: Incantation for Rebirth” (Swan Scythe Press, 2010). He teaches at Long Beach City College and lives in Cerritos, Calif.
The Academy of American Poets is a nonprofit, mission-driven organization, whose aim is to make poetry available to a wider audience. Email The Academy at poem-a-day@poets.org.
(c) 2016 Burlee Vang. Originally published in Poem-a-Day, www.poets.org. Distributed by King Features Syndicate.
