The Alpha Day by William Doreski

The alpha day has arrived.

Snowmelt reflects the faces

stunned by this fevered moment.

Steeples nod. Big trucks rev engines

and stutter down narrow streets,

smashing parked cars and crushing

pedestrians slow to dodge them.

We’re trapped on a movie set

where only fiction matters.

The director requires silence

and everyone’s cooperation.

A scene with rampaging trucks

needs several takes before

the cars are crushed beyond reuse.

The director leans this way and that,

but in the scene with the cannibal

I ad lib a few stammered phrases

and he shouts, “That’s a wrap!”

The dead pedestrians brush off

the dirty snow and pocket their pay

for suffering ragged indignities.

The alpha day ends with a fresh

acetylene sunset pinned

to one wall of the soundstage

where we all can admire it.

Then we retire to our lives

to indulge the illusion that

we’ve just been filmed for posterity.

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William Doreski lives in Peterborough, New Hampshire. He has taught at several colleges and universities. His most recent book of poetry is Cloud Mountain (2024).  He has published three critical studies, including Robert Lowell’s Shifting Colors.  His essays, poetry, fiction, and reviews have appeared in various journals.