Packing List for Armageddon

A horseshoe, the color and texture of an ancient railroad spike, taken from my grandfather’s tack shed.

A CD jewel case, the contents of which do not match the label.

A ratchet.

A universal socket, hexagonal with fifty-four cylinders fitted snugly inside. A miniature Giant’s Causeway.

A partially eaten bag of sunflower seeds, purchased in 2020. Edible.

A baseball, abandoned, found in an abandoned Havana suburb in an abandoned field, saplings sprouting from stadium walls like an infant Angkor Wat.

A small, opaque, reusable plastic container with purple lid, contents invisible but to science: It once held Hatch green chile, then a portion of what was left of my friend. Seven of us spread his ashes on the eighteenth tee box of a golf course, a church where he was the best version of himself. I later thought of using the makeshift urn to hold flies, Copper Johns and Bead Head Hare’s Ears and #6 Poundmeister Craneflies, but that’s a different church.

What sacrament precedes discarding a thing that held discards?

This, inside my truck’s center console, topped by a string of brown Kukui nuts, a circle I drape ceremoniously over my neck when I need to feel invincible.