about the author
Stacia M. Fleegal is the author of Anatomy of a Shape-Shifter (WordTech, forthcoming 2010), Versus (BlazeVOX, forthcoming), and the chapbooks The Lines Are Not My Friends (second place, Cervena Barva Press chapbook competition, 2010) and A Fling with the Ground (Finishing Line Press, 2007). She was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2009. Her poems have recently appeared or are forthcoming in Fourth River, The Louisville Review, Skidrow Penthouse, Pemmican, Blue Collar Review, and The Kerf. She co-founded and edits both Blood Lotus and Imaginary Friend Press.
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Post-Apocalyptic
Stacia M. Fleegal
We are the last of us we call we. They
are hunting us. We’ve taken over
a decrepit building, its toes in a river,
its back against the woods. We’ve booby-trapped
each floor but where we live—or wait to die—
on top, so each time one of us returns
with candy bars, or paper scraps, or vodka,
we must remember we barricaded
the staircase we’re to use; we must remember
to duck wires and crosshairs, avoid snares, hug
the walls around the rotting floor. We must
remember all doors are trap doors, and our fires
should be barely more than sticks. We must remember
remembering is always futuristic.