The West Preston Japan Club
by K. M. Praschak

Yeah, we expected you Strangers
To smash Tokyo like bad sushi.
Your ship plummeted you too close
To resist all that city's shine.

When you killed all the anime,
We mourned the loss of worlds
Instead of the kids like us.
Then you moved west.

As you glided over the sea to us,
Cities killed themselves by evacuation.
TVs burped 'It's Okay!' over and over.
While entire states of emergency vaporized.

Our parents are in their storm cellars,
Hiding in the dark with their shotguns,
Curled up with their Bibles,
Their 72-hour kits, and their fear.

Unlike them, we've seen The End
A thousand different times, dubbed and subbed.
We know apocalypse gleams
With a peculiar beauty in the twilight.

For one last time, we're downtown.
We're going to forget you for 26 episodes.
Then we'll bury our dreams in a pit,
Along with a toy mecha, and a pair of chopsticks,
Because hope, like an oversized monster,
Always rises again.

Oklahoma writer K. M. Praschak's poems have appeared in Star*Line. Her story "Juneteenth" was recently published in the Jigsaw Nation anthology, and her science fiction comedy novella "Paragon" is due out in Creative Guy Publishing's Amityville House of Pancakes 3. She would like to thank Marlo Dianne and Jack Mangan for their help.