Abigail Clauhs
Carbon Dating

In some distant, foreign time
when clouds have swept the toxic dust
of a thousand fractured atoms
across a bombarded world,
there will be no moonlight.

The beach that we once stood on
will have turned to dirty glass,
silicon fused in radioactive slicks
lapped by the sludge
of what was once the sea.

There will be no footprints,
no voices to haunt the dead air,
no hands to pull away from,
no bruises, no bones, no flesh.

You swore we would last the ages.
The ages will last less.

_ _

Abigail Clauhs is a junior at Boston University, where she is majoring in religion and minoring in English and anthropology. This mouthful of concentrations basically translates to a love for people and words. A transplant from South Carolina -- land of poetic plantations and fried chicken -- she can often be found sitting on the Boston Common scribbling in her notebook like a pretentious hipster.

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