M F Drummy

Vancouver

I am walking through the end of the world
with a group of strangers,
trying to avoid the skirmishes,
crossing what once was
the border between Ecuador and Peru.
We are headed toward the sea.

We speak Spanish when we speak
at all. As the Andes flatten out
into dry brush and overgrown fincas,
we find an abandoned farmhouse
in which to spend the night. My dreams
are immediate, troubled, vivid:

I am composing poetry before
sunrise, before breakfast,
before the second pandemic
eliminated the need for calendars.
Then, there is that weekend in Vancouver,
meeting up with writing friends

for a walk along False Creek, ending
at a café in Yalestown called Kafka’s,
thinking That is the coolest name for a café.
Flirting with the cute barista, black hair
tied back, as she made my flat white,
decaf. Have you ever read Kafka?

I ask her. Who? she says. Kafka,
the author, for whom this café is named.
She looks puzzled. This place is named
after the owner, Joe Kafka.
Ah, I think, Joseph K, brilliant!
Well, I mansplain, Franz Kafka

wrote strange tales a hundred years ago.
I wake in the dark to shuffling and shouting,
my ears ringing. I try to remember
where I am, then why, and the despair
settles in again. I think of my conversation
with the barista, which, in retrospect,

somehow feels now like the beginning
of the end, while those in my group
have left the farmhouse to investigate
a nearby commotion. I rise to follow them,
hearing the now familiar tap-tap-tap
of semi-automatic weapons.

I keep my distance, my antenna up:
Where is it coming from? What’s going on?
I approach one of those in my group.
¿Qué está pasando? I ask. She says
some revolucionarios have found troops
hiding in caves. There are

screams, intermittent gunfire, chaos.
The morning light has begun to diffuse,
the contours of the desiccated landscape
appear, wild, nature reclaiming itself.
From one of the caves I hear English
being spoken, that distinctive

British Columbian accent. It is a woman,
firing into the cave at men in uniforms,
yelling Take that you motherfucking
cockroaches! Her black hair is pulled
back. I recognize her, thinking:
Shit, she read The Metamorphosis.

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M F Drummy’s poetry has appeared in dozens of journals, literary magazines, and anthologies, including Allium, Meetinghouse, and Rattle. A Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee, their debut full-length collection of poetry, Perdido (Main Street Rag Press), was published in 2025. Their second collection of poetry, Defensible Spaces (Kelsay Books), will be forthcoming in 2026. They can be found at https://www.pw.org/directory/writers/m_f_drummy.