In the End

The '50s sci-fi flicks foretold the end,

• Photos

when nuclear ants as big as Corvettes,

with mandibles like steel, more cruel and sharp

than daggers, would cut a man in two.

Humongous Mothra would cover the sun

with dusty wings and whip ten thousand vortices

across the landscape, lifting and crushing

in darkness the rootless things of the world.

With stunning hard symmetry enduring

like diamonds, insects would conquer the earth.

These splendid tiny machines -- their fate inscribed

in seamless strands of DNA encircling

the world, purely programmed and engineered --

would reign, devour and propagate their legion.