It’s over anyway so fuck it, right?
I mean, who cares about bromeliads,
or dace, or honeybees beset by mites
when apex predators are dropping dead
like flies from recontaminated air.
Let’s break the small batch top shelf liquor out,
unseal expensive potions and prepare
for charnel house and offal pit. Some doubt
but none object for fear of seeming wrong,
forever shunned by decent company.
We’re one misstep from permanent disgrace,
alone on islands of apology,
feign penitence to save ancestral place.
Fire hastens down the vale. It won’t be long.
Image by Ricardo Gomez Angel on unsplash.com, licensed under CC 2.0.
George Witte’s new collection is An Abundance of Caution (Unbound Edition Press, 2023); previous books are Does She Have a Name?, Deniability, and The Apparitioners. Recent poems are published or forthcoming in Consequence, Five Points, Pedestal, This Broken Shore, and elsewhere. He lives with his family in Ridgewood, New Jersey. For more information, visit www.georgewittepoet.com
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