Lauren Gordon

WHEN THE RAPTURE WAS A THING AND YOU WERE STILL ALIVE

You were caught up on a Tuesday
lifted to clouds like a glint, the shape

of your body outlined in a worn t-shirt,
undulating on a breeze as if housing

a heart—The Rapture started in Fiji
like a cough, whipped through Europe

like a blink, then choked in Oklahoma
before it found you in Iowa

next to a river in sweet, clean grass
fishing for carp on a hooky day

under God's golden sun and this
is how I picture it. Not you

collapsed in the basement
where we raced slot cars with the kids,

where you installed the keg fridge
we all hated, where you played me records,

gave me hope, made me believe
I could be a Chosen, I could have that joy,

know the exuberant love of a universe
spinning with purpose, that I could be

worthy.
Not you at the bottom of a house

alone in the middle of a Tuesday
in the middle of your life,

not the stopping of your brain,
an aneurysm rupturing.

Lauren Gordon is the author of four chapbooks: Meaningful Fingers with Finishing Line Press, Generalizations about Spines with Yellow Flag Press, Keen with Horse Less Press, and Fiddle Is Flood with Blood Pudding Press. Her work has appeared in many anthologies and journals, such as The Volta Blog, PANK, The Collagist, Juked, Sugar House Review, burntdistrict, and The Adirondack Review. She is also a Contributing Editor to Radius Lit and the Reviews Editor for Damfino Press.