“Anybody Raptured Yet?”

question asked by Mary Carroll-Hackett

by Ace Boggess

Spent the morning waiting
in the auto-service customer lounge,
listening through grinding
metal against metal,
the angry noise of old men
watching Fox News on TV.

Prophecies fail me—
the state inspection must proceed.
What will masters of fate determine?
Faulty brakes? Worn tires?

I know as little about inner workings of my car
as these men do of verse.
The motor could blow at any time.
My words might fade in a wispy breeze.

An end approaches
for me, the car, the prophets
of nonsense, the story
of this poem. The holiest
know when, they tell us—
they’ve been wrong before.

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Ace Boggess is author of six books of poetry, most recently Escape Envy. His writing has appeared in Michigan Quarterly Review, Notre Dame Review, Harvard Review, Mid-American Review, and other journals. An ex-con, he lives in Charleston, West Virginia, where he writes and tries to stay out of trouble.