Most people find the Jehovah’s Witness to be
at best a nuisance, at worst a plague. I don’t.
When I am sick, they come to my door and see
how I am doing, and when I invite
them to come in, they always refuse, but nicely.
Seeing I am bored, they give me pamphlets
to read about the coming end of days.
I don’t care much about what one or the other says;

my eye is drawn to the lurid illustrations
depicting a post-apocalyptic world.
It is populated only by nuclear families
having picnics on checkered cloths spread
on green grass beneath cartoonish trees
while abstract bluebirds flutter overhead.
The scene’s cartoonish ugliness seems to me
paradisiac in its lack of complexity.