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      May 30, 2018The Last ToothbrushEcho Wren

      When the end of the world arrived, I still had my toothbrush.
      I felt ridiculous clutching it, but I had just finished brushing
      when the alarms rang, and I needed to hang onto something.
      I went out into the street in my pajamas.
      The dawn had not yet broken, and in the civil twilight
      wandered men who had fallen asleep in yesterday’s
      shirt and tie, and children following the rules
      of hide and seek, and couples dressed in rumpled bedsheets,
      rustling like yesterday’s news.
       
      I surveyed the dazzled mob. Most of these people, I bet,
      hadn’t brushed their teeth yet, and among them
      I felt like the luckiest. I was the wealthiest
      in civility, in manners, in the passing style
      of luxurious hygiene. I smiled forth the promise
      of untainted breath, stain-free chompers
      chomping through a new day, free of the life
      I had lived and the life I had eaten, the blank slate
      of my mouth with no history of decay—
      and my pajamas were a clean pair.
       
      I hung onto that toothbrush, why I don’t know.
      It wasn’t a hand, it wasn’t a memory, the bristles
      were worn down into curls. But the end of the world was here—
      all boundaries were breaking, we were half naked
      half awake on the streets, and somehow,
      someway, through some blueprint of muscle
      memory and the inheritance of rituals
      and two-minute habits, I found myself
      trying to find new ways to build
      the walls again.

      from #59 - Spring 2018

      Echo Wren

      “I escaped Vietnam with my mother as a small child. I have no memories of my homeland, but somehow I recognize the soil, the sounds and smells. This language of impressions, preceding my capacity to understand, still forms the foundation of my being. I love poetry because it captures things half-remembered and lost. I write poetry because I am looking for home.”