everywhere around the world.
I learn this at work, a television
production office. A film would
frack lands surrounding its sets
were it to save a few hundred
bucks– you thought I’d say lives?
What powers that be? We’re alive,
yes, already pulsing red rivers
breached with microplastics.
The jingling adds up in my veins.
When I read forever chemicals,
I want it to mean love
but it is in the way we will
suffer together, forever,
oil rigs raised, still, all
over, hands up in ugly prayer.
The burning questions I want
to ask I can’t even stand
outside in a storm and be satiated.

(originally published in A Thin Slice of Anxiety, Winter 2023)