And What Good Will Your Vanity Be When the Rapture Comes

"And What Good Will Your Vanity Be When The Rapture Comes"
 Says the man with a cart of empty bottles
 At the corner of church and Lincoln
 While I stare into my phone and I say
 I know oh I know
 While trying to find the specific filter
 That will make the sun's near-flawless descent
 Look the way I might describe it in a poem
 And the man says 'the moment is already right in front of you'
 And I say I know
 But everyone I love is not here
 And I mean here like on this street corner with me
 While I turn the sky a darker shade of red on my phone
 And I mean here like everyone I love who I can still touch
 And not pass my fingers through like the wind in a dream
 But I look up at the man
 And he is a kaleidoscope of shadows
 I mean his shadows have shadows
 And they are all small and trailing behind him
 And I know then that everyone he loves is also not here
 And the man doesn't ask but I still say hey man I've got nothing
 I've got nothing
 Even though I have plenty to go home to
 And the sun is still hot, even in its endless flirt with falling
 And the man's palm has a small river inside
 I'm saying he has taken my hand now and here we are
 Tethered and unmoving
 And the man says
 'What color are you making the sky?'
 And I say what I might say in a poem I say
 'All surrender ends in blood'
 And he says 'no
 What color are you making the sky?'
 And I say
 'Something bright enough to make everyone I love wish they were here'
 And he squints towards the dancing shrapnel of dying light
 Along a rooftop
 And he says
 'I love things only as they are'
 And I'm sure I did once too
 But I can't prove it to anyone these days
 And he says
 'The end isn't always about what dies' and I say know, I know
 Or I knew once
 And now I write about beautiful things
 Like I will never touch a beautiful thing again
 And the man looks me in the eyes
 And he points above us over heaven's gates
 And he says
 'The faces of everyone you miss is up there'
 And I know, I know
 I can't see them but I know
 And he turns my face to the horizon and he says
 We don't have much time left
 And I get that he means
 The time before the sun is finally through with its daily work
 Or I think I get that
 But I still can't stop trembling
 And I close my eyes and I am sobbing
 On the corner of church and Lincoln
 And when I open my eyes
 The sun is plucking everyone
 Who has chosen to love me from the clouds
 And carrying them into the light-drunk sky
 And I am seeing this and I know I am seeing this
 The girl who kissed me as a boy
 In the dairy aisle of Meijer while our parents shopped
 And the older boy on the basketball team
 Who taught me how to make a good fist and swing it
 Into the jaw of a bully
 And the friends who crawled to my porch
 In the summer of any year I have been alive
 They were all there
 I saw their faces and it was like
 I was given the eyes of a newborn
 Again
 And once you know what it is to be lonely
 It is hard to un-see that which serves as a reminder
 That you were not always
 And I am gasping into the now-dark air and I pull my shirt up
 To wipe whatever tears are left
 And I see the man walking in the other direction
 And I chase him down
 And I tap his arm and I say 'did you see it?
 Did you see it like I did?'
 And he turns and leans into the glow of a streetlamp
 And he is anchored by a single shadow now
 And he sneers
 And he says 'son have we met?'
 And he scoffs
 And pushes his cart off into the night
 And I can hear the glass rattling
 Even as I watch him become small and vanish
 And I look down at my phone and the sky is still blood red