The Last Man

By Cliff Lake

 

The Last Man

 

The last man alive stared out at the world.

He was thinking about things

That soon would not matter.

He saw things he would tell no one.

 

Perhaps he had complaints.

No one could hear them;

He was the last one left.

There is no cure for that.

 

He had started to build a thing,

But there was no one left to see it.

Maybe it would have been good, or poor,

But now it was just unfinished.

 

He had started to go somewhere,

But there would be no one to greet him,

So, he stayed in the nowhere he’d gotten to.

There was no one to tell him to leave.

 

The last man alive stared back where he had been.

That too was nowhere.

He saw his footprints blown away in the wind.

He thought that was appropriate.

 

He wished someone would ask him

What was so funny,

Because he no longer knew.

The last man in the world resumed staring.

 

There was nothing else to do…

 

Cliff Lake 11/17/2023

Copyright © Clifford Lake 2023

Location: Dalton, MA, USA

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