Poem by Miriam Sagan

Apocalypse In A Little While

Sitting at the Betsy Hotel
Drinking coffee on South Beach

I’ve taught myself once again
To say please and thank you

I could weep, pierced by the beauty
Of toast, and palm trees (real and fake)

Surrounded by paintings
Of deadly gossamer jellyfish

Which will inherit
The waste heap we leave the earth

But not just yet, because it is Otis Redding
Singing “Dock of the Bay”

And I write these words
On the hotel chit

For this moment, it’s as if
I’ll never die.

Photography © Allison Goldin

Miriam Sagan is the author of 25 books, including the recent collection from Sherman Asher, Seven Places In America: A Poetic Sojourn. Recently won New Mexico Literary Arts Gratitude Award in Poetry, and have received the Santa Fe Mayor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts. She also does text and grassroots installations–most recently at Salem Art Works and at The Betsy Hotel.

Allison Goldin is an artist living in California. Her work is a collection of spontaneous drawings from the imagination. The most common link throughout her art are the semi-recognizable creatures scattered amongst and bringing together the surrounding doodles.