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Last Days

Ace Boggess

We grind ourselves to powder—

dread-gritting, fear-fisted,

we sprint in the rain,

dodging virus like ricochets

to go where, do what,

make love with our mouths to whom?

So many said I am finished

with waiting. I hear their regrets

echoing from the well,

this fading year angry & off-

kilter like a death-

rock band with tambourines.

Ace Boggess is the author of six books of poetry, most recently Escape Envy. His writing has appeared in Michigan Quarterly Review, Notre Dame Review, Harvard Review, The Laurel Review, and other journals. An ex-con, he lives in Charleston, West Virginia, where he writes and tries to stay out of trouble.