The End by Grace Beeler Two cats One black, sleek but fat One gray, a ragged stray Needle claws Unsewing A yowling ball On the table, tacos Good news -My aunt got out She’s in Egypt Thank god But what about the family? What about the rest? Grapefruit trees In neat rows -Were picking to help The workers We’re picking to Avoid thinking about The Situation Each smooth yellow fruit The size And weight Of an un-incubated Premie’s head You toss them into the bucket The soft fruit Makes an awful thunk As it hits the plastic wall How can you pick grapefruit? Thunk How can you not pick grapefruit? Thunk What could possibly be wrong with Picking grapefruit? Thunk What could be wrong with Bringing the kids outside For some fresh air? Thunk With feeding people? Thunk Anyone with half a heart would do it Thunk Thunk What could possibly be wrong with Thunk A six year old Thunk Stretched out on the hospital floor Thunk Two limbs amputated Thunk No anesthesia Thunk No antiseptic Thunk No electricity Thunk No hope Thunk No bittersweet sticky juice Thunk No hope Thunk No hope No hope Under the table The cats claw and Snarl Fangs locked on each other’s throats Legs jackhammering guts Are you going to put your hand in there To stop them? And then? What then? What end? And when? Copyright 2023 by Grace Beeler
Poet and Filmmaker Grace Beeler is the author of the chapbook A Lineage of Light, and co-editor of the anthology Before We Have Nowhere to Stand – Palestine/Israel: Poet Respond to the Struggle. Her poetry has appeared in Mothering Magazine, New Verse News, Poetica and Blueline among others. Her films include The Box, What Comes Out Goes to the Government, The Chance to Live, The Bite, and Leaving. Her new spoken word film Salt has screened at eleven festivals internationally and will be at the Monologues International Film Festival December 16th – 19. Grace is the director of the NGO After the Rain, which houses the Appropriate Sanitation Institute and the Triangle Refugee Film Project. She also teaches English as a Second Language at Durham Tech Community College in Durham, NC.
