This selection, chosen by guest editor Merrick Sloane, is from When the Trumpet Is Blown by Quraishiyah Durbarry (Resource Publications, 2023).
39.
There’ll be sure signs of the apocalypse
They say
Mountains will float around
As cotton
The sea will bubble and boil
Animals will talk
The sun will turn water
And the sky ripped in
Two
But
Nobody told me
Nobody told me you’ll be gone
Days crept on, the sky smiled on
The sun burnt on
The earth will be torn
The prophet will come back
Or go back
Nobody can keep tracks of his coming
And going anymore
And Alexander himself spewed
From his grave
But nobody made a sign
No wave, no nod
Before you were gone
The ground kept stable
The seers kept sinning
And praying
And eat on the forbidden lamb
Promised to heaven
And I went on normally
Ignoring you
Because there should have been
Tomorrow
We lived our parallel journey
Once again
Once last
And I told you good night
À demain
Quraishiyah Durbarry is a doctoral student in comparative literature at the University of Clermont Auvergne and has so far ventured into several genres, including poetry, novel, and drama. A bilingual author, Quraishiyah writes in both English and French. She was Co-Laureate and Laureate of the Writing Prize for the Passe Portes Festival of the European Union in 2015 and 2016 respectively.
Merrick Sloane (they/them) is a neuro-Queer 90’s kid and nonbinary poet, editor, and researcher from Oklahoma who’s a sucker for expletives and second languages. They hold an MFA in creative writing from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville and are Associate Poetry Editor of Doubleback Review. Merrick’s work has appeared in The Central Dissent: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality, Stories for the Road: Trauma and Internal Communication, BLEACH!, citizen trans* {project}, Arcana Poetry and is forthcoming in Puerto del Sol and ANMLY. Merrick’s poetry was recently selected as a winner of the Garden Party Collective’s contest on Neurodivergence / Intersectionality and as a winner for AWP’s 2025 Intro Journal Awards. Their work has received support from the DreamYard Rad(ical) Poetry Consortium and Sundress Publications. Merrick writes so that others may feel radically loved.
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