Today as heat melted the sliding glass door

The hottest day they had on file

I walked my way through the grocery store

And saw four Horsemen in the produce aisle;

Pestilence, a smile twisted on their maskless lips,

Stretched oozing fingers over the Romaine lettuce,

Mucus crawling from their mouth in slow drips;

Though we flaunt and sneer, disease does not forget us.

War examined bananas through the plexiglas

Of his SWAT visor, tinted plastic reflecting oil and gore,

His Armani suit hung heavy with tear gas

As he spat blood & chocolate onto the floor.

Famine crouched among the empty shelves

She laughed, and coins jangled in her throat;

Empty bellies are where she dwells

In the dying, the gouging, the bloat.

And Death glided soundless among the quartet

It lingered behind an old woman for a moment-

Famine grinned, and the old woman checked her pocketbook

Before putting the frozen chicken back from whence she had took.

I looked away from her- what else is there to be done?

I turned to my grocery list- where there is pain, there is distraction.

Oranges, bread, wine, butter- salted.

I weighed the oranges in my hands, then halted

As Famine pointed at a large fruit in the back of the pile.

"That one'll be juicy," her hollow voice beguiled.

I nodded my thanks, placing the orange in my cart.

War stood among the wines, reds like blood on a purple heart.

He spoke, and I knew his voice from the drones outside my door;

“Kherson made lovely wine. It doesn’t anymore.”

I turned away from him- what is there to be done?- looked to find the butter

But soon saw it had all melted from the shelves into the gutter.

The heat at the glass door had crept through the aisles,

Melting all of the creams, butters, and hairstyles.

The heat warped the linoleum tile, lapped at my skin

Hellfire seized the plexiglas windows, ash whipped before the wind.

I should have brought an umbrella, I think. 

A voice crackled over the intercom: "The store will be closing in fifteen."

I turned to Death. "What's the best price for bread here, do you know?"

Death smiled. "My dear, haven't you heard? The world's coming to an end."

I only nodded. "I know. But we still have to buy bread at the end of the world."