Table of contents

1. Cover
2. Title Page
3. Copyright
4. Table of Contents
5. Foreword by D. A. Powell
6. Alive at the End of the World
7. Alive at the End of the World
8. A Memory
9. That’s Not Snow, It’s Ash
10. If You Had an Off Button, I’d Name You “Off”
11. A Song for the Status Quo
12. All I Gotta Do Is Stay Black and Die
13. It’s 1975 and Paul Mooney Says “Nigger” a Hundred Times
14. Deleted Voice Message: Hey, Robyn—It’s Me, Whitney
15. Grief #213
16. Saeed, or The Other One: I
17. Alive at the End of the World
18. Saeed, How Dare You Make Your Mother into a Prelude
19. Saeed Wonders If the Poem You Just Read Would’ve Been Better Served by a Different Title
20. Heritage
21. After the School Board Meeting
22. Black Ice
23. The Trial
24. Gravity
25. Aretha Franklin Hears an Echo While Singing “Save Me”
26. Diahann Carroll Takes a Bath at the Beverly Hills Hotel
27. Grief #913
28. Saeed, or the Other One: II
29. Alive at the End of the World
30. “Sorry as in Pathetic”
31. A Stranger
32. Okay, One More Story
33. Okay, One More Story
34. Date Night
35. The Essential American Worker
36. Against Progeny
37. A Difficult Love Song for Luther Vandross
38. Little Richard Listens to Pat Boone Sing “Tutti Frutti”
39. Grief #346
40. Saeed, or The Other One: III
41. Alive at the End of the World
42. Extinction
43. Everything Is Dying, Nothing Is Dead
44. A Spell to Banish Grief
45. The Dead Dozens
46. After Watching a Video of Cicely Tyson Singing a Hymn, I Realize I Wasn’t a Good Grandson
47. Performing as Miss Calypso, Maya Angelou Dances Whenever She Forgets the Lyrics, which Billie Holiday, Seated in the Audience, Finds Annoying
48. At 84 Years Old, Toni Morrison Wonders If She’s Depressed
49. All I Gotta Do Is Stay Black and Die (Apocalyptic Remix)
50. Grief #1
51. Saeed, or The Other One: IV
52. Notes at the End of the World
53. Acknowledgments
54. Funder Acknowledgments
55. The Publisher’s Circle of Coffee House Press
56. About the Author