Americans prep for doomsday
by flexing self-reliance.
A suburban fluoride-free well,
a personal wheat silo.
I broke my leg as a kid
and while in traction
grasped that in a bunker
I would have died.
So when it looked like
the worst might happen,
I began begging in my city,
since it’s wiser to ask someone for help
and then ask them to be your friend
than the reverse.
You, you reading this poem,
are my hedge against catastrophe.
I will hunt and gather for you
if you will make me new glasses when mine break.