Survivalism

When I’m gone you can toss my ashes

into the Winooski River or misplace them

among the boxes in the shed; whatever. For now

I am daughter only to a working dog,

a shepherd with one blind eye and an ethic.

He remembers he loves me each morning

and howls when I leave for work.

When my mother died I found the things

she’d collected for the apocalypse:

canned beans and bandages. She was ready,

I guess, but it made me sad to think

of her living there alone—the whole world

having undreamt itself utterly,

the horizon in flames—wondering

what day it was, and whether I’d survived.