Three days. Nine meals. The ledger doesn’t lie.
The trucks stop rolling. Warehouses run dry.
The freezer coughs, then stills. Time to flee.
Just-in-time was the plan. There was no Plan B.

First meal missed: a joke. The second: doubt.
Third: the deadbolt slides. Fourth: the lights go out.
By nine, the street belongs to what we hid.
Civilization was a thing we did.

The trucks run the highways. The ships split the sea.
A just-in-time miracle. A mortgaged guarantee.
A cyclone. A drone strike. A server blinks red.
The Age of Abundance hung by a thread.

First empty cart. First price that no one pays.
Day two: the register dies. Day three: the blaze.
The pump clicks dry. The dollar is a joke.
The contract was a promise. The promise turned to smoke.

Nine meals. The primate wakes inside the eye.
The handshake curls to fist. We learn the reason why.
Three sunsets from the thing we swore we weren’t.
The mask slipped off. The face was always burnt.

The shelves are full tonight. Tomorrow: who can say.
The trucks run now. The thread holds one more day.
Nine meals from silence. Three sunsets from the dark.
The ice was never thick. Tread lightly. Leave no mark.