Content warning: death or dying
The degrees have fallen so low
of late, the landscape a video noise.
It has become impossible to think.
Meanwhile, the children continue
to require feeding. They’re playing
with the little sunlight left, hoping
that tree branches won’t crack
their heads open. If you told me:
The sun won’t ever rise again,
I’d believe you. If you told me:
Most of us won’t even have that chance,
I’d believe you, and count myself
among the deathtoll in advance.
What I can’t bear to think of is:
our dreams past, the names we had.
How the man-made fingers of fate
separated, left us road-killed,
dismembered. I return to the need
to feed the little ones. Their beaks.
A house – taped up bin bags over their
heads: the only love we can afford.