When The End came, it was not the end–
it never is; the universe continues.
The millions died; I stand alone, no friend;
alone, but healthy in my bones and sinews.
One keeps on, staunchly, soldierly at post,
your day-to-day as other days have been…
though the past world (or you) is just a ghost,
a relic, fragment, hint, more felt than seen.
I’ve lived beyond my time; my world has gone,
my car-charged streets, my teeming meeting rooms,
the close-packed skyline-scrapers now redrawn
as nascent forest, trees standing as tombs
where flocks of birds replace friends whose lives fled,
with ghostly unseen me alone not dead.

*****

‘Last Building Standing’ is a Shakespearean sonnet, first published by The Orchards Poetry Journal. The Winter 2025 issue is now live on Amazon, as well as the Kelsay Books website.

Image: ‘Abandoned Skyscraper’ by RHL and ChatGPT