Existential 1
First, we were killing the bees. Then, people cultivated outrage & condescension & put white cubes of bee colonies on roofs in cities, in suburban backyards, at the edges of fields & hashtagged all the ways we were terribly, shamefully wrong, harming not only bees but the land & poisoning the earth – buzzing with anger, we multiplied the cube hives, wrote books, filmed documentaries, speechified against honey consumption, banded together with vegans & wildlife tour guides & enviro-terrorists & angry moms & millennials & went on speaking tours, filmed TedTalks, lectured in elementary school auditoriums, made provocative art & poetry alluding to stingers & getting stung, being inflamed, reddened, hot, irritated, painful & now we find out that the American honeybee isn’t the issue & the cubes were made with formaldehyde so we’re all fucked anyway.
Existential 2
Don’t even get me started
on the monarchs.
The Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation says
monarch populations have plummeted
over 99% since the 1980s.
The habitat is lost. Our McMansions
killed the butterflies.
Overwintering sites are ruined.
Tree trimming is too severe and our garden
plots teem with predators. The monarchs
have nowhere to reign.
They need nectar. Showy milkweed. Rabbit brush.
Asclepias is a pretty name
and sounds like a goddess.
The goddess of travel to Mexico.
We are failing
her. The goddess of puffy milkweed pod dander floating on a thermal gust.
Negative Space: in Which a Frog is a Metaphor for Myself
The frog enters the lake, closing
clear third eyelids—involuntary
self-defense—and sinks. Then swims.
Now soft in tetherless green, pretend
it’s yesterday. Or tomorrow.
No doubt, no danger here. Holding
back my own nictating membrane,
revealing to you all
that’s sensitive. Don’t
touch, just whisper. The silhouette
the surround. What can you touch here? A hand closes in on itself.
Blind Spot
Some rare sparrow hops lightly in
to our inhales, inhabits us briefly, searing—
then spills from the body like lava.
Bend your tongue to its flavor, feel
the tiny warm grains of ha ha,
your mouth a palace for jesters.
Grapple with me a moment
and suss out what you can: this groping about
always be fruitless, furtive, always
landing on the offbeat. Call it
syncopation if you like.
But is it love? Inspiration? I cannot
see. I won’t see.
Lemons
I’m dreaming at the chrome faucet
the porcelain sink still wet
dishwasher humming
American kitchen framed
by a thin-paned window
open to the wind
lost in my own reflection
California night sounds all around
the empty room
full of appliances
my lemon tree batters
the house in the wind
branches striking siding
scratching glass
stopping when I try to listen
like a thief breaking in
who’s there?
I’ll bite
that thick rind oily, barely pliant
only yielding to sharpest incisors
nobody answers
bitter, so bitter—
I grind the seeds between my teeth.
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