Once in the End

by Sheila Petre

My friend’s mother told her,
You will not grow old. Christ will return before
You are trundled up the ramp of a nursing home.
I smiled when I heard. How many are told
The same, for millennia, here in the End of the world?
But I have aged, with my friend, and I think we’re on the cusp
Of the deafening Return, when every eye will see
Truth as He is, and not as a one of us imagine He will be.

Have you not thought the same? My sole defense
If you are reading this a century hence.

Sheila is surprised but grateful to find herself the mother of ten children and the author of several books.

Photography by Kenneth Godoy