Detroit off Exit 1A is nearly empty, anyway:
lots of leading out to nowhere, people all chased off,
then the man in the hole by the party store.
The film crew sets up in the middle of bad industry,
and all they have to do is park the cars disheveled and random,
then pose clothes on the streets mimicking the postures
of their vaporized human contents. Litter outfits spooky enough for a movie
not about being afraid of what’s in the dark,
but of Dark herself, splashy new monster….
You know, paranoid, creature-feature sci-fi.
The Apocalypse with so little prep.
Think movement evaporated, says the Director. Think rapture.
A couple of German tourists told reporters they had come to see
the end of the world: an illness both ancient and futuristic.
The last resort for saving grace: fantasy.
A new game called psychoball. Bunkers for future
wars in techno-sized unreality.
Performance art collectives draped in ghostwear.
Beer labels in end-time themes. Constant machine hallucinations
of being methodically crushed.
Even plans for zombie theme parks are abandoned.
Graffiti not making any sense, not finished. Old,
abandoned train station.
Every other thing closed or to be closed. Decay
obsession. Online photo journals—
shot after shot of cold blood bed & breakfast.
Skies with twin suns. The city
so pretty. The rabid brush of still life.
Mary-Alice Daniel was born in Nigeria and raised in England and Nashville, Tennessee, but considers Los Angeles her home. She is a Zell Fellow at the University of Michigan, where she writes poetry. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in New England Review, Mid-American Review, Anti-, and PANK.
