The Future Never Arrives

Amy Pence

Near dawn, we draw birds onto our laps as one

Sentient eye blinks in the heavens, or so it seems. Our

Sex proof that it’s possible to fully enter

Each other: your boy’s face, young adult. That

Quiver of your eyebrow so sure—an arrow sent

Length-wise into a posturing world. We resided one

State apart. Your Hollywood, my Las Vegas—dream

Winds parching our lips. Late apocalypse, you

Motorcycled through the Quarter, roomed at the ruined

Hotel. By then, I lived north of your south, past the mobile home park’s

Rural by-pass. But what’s in the world’s mouth but one delicious

Map crumpled with erasures? Now there’s nothing we need. Age

Having released the demons. We shiver when

The phoebe comes down, tender oracle in our palms.

Amy Pence published two full-length collections, the hybrid [It] Incandescent (Ninebark Press) as well as two chapbooks, including Your Posthumous Dress (dancing girl press) in 2019. She’s a freelance tutor, taught poetry at Emory, and basks in her garden until mosquitoes swarm. Her first novel YELLOW is forthcoming from Red Hen Press in 2026.