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      November 28, 2019After the ExtinctionSusan Carroll Jewell

      Image: “Brainyo” by Dana St. Mary. “After the Extinction” was written by Susan Carroll Jewell for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, October 2019, and selected as the Editor’s Choice.
      And when you pass,
      an unfamiliar drip and splash
      globule in space, know
       
      that we are your arrogant
      twin, newly cosmic and drifting
      through the galaxies, vibrating
       
      strings of collective energy blown
      into the heavens from Earth,
      remnant strands of humanness
       
      formed from the streams of birthday
      leftovers and nests of ribbons
      unboxed. A face on a backdrop
       
      of starlight declares who we were,
      closed lips and a pointless nose,
      a hollow ear and open eyes startled
       
      not at the speed of light but of extinction.
      Our brain still circles with inescapable
      science, our art left behind, the Gothic
       
      glass and Pollack paint of a wasted
      culture. And if you see these colored
      cords wiggling like conceited wires
       
      through the universe, know that they
      hold badges of mistakes, a neck
      that connects to nothing but a lanyard
       
      with a label—Hello, My Name Is—
      like a poet grasping for a last line,
      a saving grace.

      from Ekphrastic Challenge

      Comment from the editor, Timothy Green

      “As you might imagine, the entries this month ranged from dark to disturbing, as poets wrestled with what must be described as a portrait of cosmic madness. Susan Carroll Jewell took that task the farthest, imagining a feature in which we only exist as the echo of our emptiness. It’s a poem rich with images, each strong line more haunting than the last.”

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