After the Apocalypse There Will Be Memory Poems
by Julie C. Day

Goodbye, Kansas

Some memories are like scars—

A knife-sharp Mobius strip in the brain

Peter and his Raiders of the Lost Sharks t-shirt

That mixture of citrus and musky end-of-day sweat

“It’s a dishwasher lemon-meringue pie, not a disaster” 

Peter had laughed 

As the foam flowed across the kitchen floor

And of course he was right

Disasters saved for another night

That apartment in Lawrence was almost ten years ago. These days there were no arms, with their scattering of dark hair and honey-brown skin, twirling Kiara above a soap-slicked kitchen floor. No dirty dinner dishes and bottles of Free State IPA. Instead, Kiara’s new life involved standing on a narrow platform supported by five stories of scaffolding next to an enormous self-sustaining dome. Kiara was one of the lucky ones. The height of the five-story-high entrance was meant to deter strays from getting in.