aayoung
so he took her like an animal
but my father’s ghost wept
so she went to the men
like a good American
good people don’t want to believe
in visionaries good or bad
especially when you have red clay mud
starved stabbed scabbed over and over
on your grandmother’s dress from being raped just like her
from ft. Sumter to Wounded Knee
he’d never seen that color red come out of a living fertility statue
my veil is torn
the dog is dead
the natives have resumed their drumbeat
who knew
the 6th mass extinction
on the planet
would be set into motion
not by a furious comet
instead thrown into chaos
by an insidious cloud
of misinformation
(que piano music)
They
will sell you
candy cigarettes,
insulin,
Camel Wides,
chemotherapy,
God,
nicotine patches,
life insurance,
and a bronze casket
all
in one lifetime.
the moment he turned
and walked away
our world became peckinpah
i can no longer discern
whose blood
my hands are weeping over
a woman’s life
is too tenuous
delicate
billowy
spider web
close call on I-75
in preterm labor
on the way to the
Paris airport
in the rain
fragile
beautiful
precious
sacrosanct
finite
for bad friends
bad family
bad coffee
bad shoes
bad mattresses
bad jobs
bad husbands
bad debt
and bad dick
learn this by 30 for maximum
enjoyment
future
female
conquerors
of a dying planet
he expected me
to be true
though everything about him
was a lie
the true measure
of a civilized society
are the rumors
told by its ghosts
as the ocean reclaims the land
and our comfort level with it
we will realize in a collective gasp
we have squandered
centuries of invention, blood, and privilege
with human conceit
.
we have wasted every memory
every idea
every love
by failing the planet
.
we have forgotten to call our mothers
as we were killing each other
over
unknowables
and inflexible
fallible
beliefs
.
don’t go crying to science
science tried to tell us long ago
.
so eat your nachos
and barbecued chemistry lab meats
cheer on your gladiator teams
as they bash their skulls together in a coliseum
enjoy the halftime performers as they twerk and bleat
live stream a diversion
drink your wine and craft beer from sustainable bottles
.
insert artisanal tampons made from the wool of
vegetarian fed sheep
.
file your taxes
.
don’t you look pretty
with thicker, fuller lashes
drop your child off anywhere
so long as you don’t hear their screams
.
pay for neon sex
on the latest smartphone
with that one last good credit card
.
swipe the strip or insert the chip
but do it hard,
consumer culture,
more, baby, more
.
a civilization
blindfolded in agreement
and a few syphilitic mosquitoes
is all the next
mass extinction needs
.