Jackpot

She listens to the bells
from slot machines
and the cascades of nickels
falling into steel shells.

Of course, this was what
you heard at the end
of the world.

It wasn't a whimper
at all. It had nothing
to do with anything
human,
not with the mouth
or the ear.

It was the sound
of symbol and motion.
It was the sound
of tin.
-- Kate Braverman, "The Woman Who Said Communion"
(McSweeney's 14)

Mom

The whole world was afraid of mother:
the trees shivered in the wind,
the bushes hunched together, trying to hide,
the grass lay flat and silent on the ground.
Even the air shrieked.
-- Jessica Lamb Shapiro, "The Animal Kingdom"
(McSweeney's 14)

End

The end of the world has come often,
and continues to often come.
Unforgiving, unrelenting,
bringing darkness upon darkness,
the end of the world is something
we have become well acquainted with,
habitualized, made into a ritual.

It is our religion
to try to forget it
in its absence, make peace
with it when it is undeniable,
and return its embrace
when it finally comes for us,
as it always does.

-- Jonathan Safran Foer, "Everything Is Illuminated"