James Finnegan

In the Wine Cellar

 

He told me he bought the house for its wine cellar,

but after dinner when we descended the stairs

I noticed cubbyholes filled with rolled-up maps

and charts, M-16s and Kalashnikovs, RPGs

and blocks of C4. He said, The walls down here

are 5-feet thick, reinforced concrete, with shaped

ceramic brick to fool ground penetrating radar.

There are over ten airshafts up to the surface,

and there’s one escape passage that runs 1500 yards

SSW and comes out on a creekbed near the highway

overpass where an SUV will be waiting.

 I said, You’re scaring me, man.

He said, A jealous darkness surrounds us.

Well then, I said, if world is ending, how about

we share a nice claret outside under the stars?

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