Meredith Stricker: "The End of the World"

has already happened


is happening


here it is

what to prove 

nothing


here it is 

no other 

than 
the small coiled teeth

of mollusk radula scraping granite tidepools


clean 

seen correctly


every bush

is a burning bush

"The End of the World" by Meredith Stricker. © Meredith Stricker. Published in The Iowa Review (Winter, 2013/14).

Photography credit: Detail from "Radula of Siphopteron quadrispinosum from Koumac," a "scanning electron micrograph" showing some of the outer lateral teeth or "radula" of a variety of mollusk, at a scale of 20 microns, by W. B. Rudman, January 16, 2004.