Three Poems

All Night I Dreamed
 
 
Growing up my mother
had an abortion rights sticker
on the front door of our suburban
raised ranch. Red shingles and black
shutters. Inside me my rights
were a tight fist. I would not open
my fingers no matter how hard
boys and men tried to pry them apart.
I would let their pushy hands
between my legs before I let them
touch who I was. I whisper to my child
that I am a witch and that men
are afraid of my strength. What men fear
they try to control. I feel the fist still
inside of me. Behind my heart—
an untouchable organ that no man
or government can regulate. You
could burn my body on a pyre
and this would still land in the ash,
indestructible in its abstraction,
concrete as the soil beneath us.
We walk to school and the child
wiggles and hops and can’t
make a straight line. She is joyful
and silly yet very serious
when needs be. She knows
even now, what is right. Every day
I galvanize her personhood
over the fire like I am
Thetis and what is immortal
is our holiness, our spirit, our
unalienable existence in the world
and the deserving that comes
with being. I expect her to ask
about the news, but instead
she holds up a fallen leaf
and a broken toy from
the gutter and we talk
about love. We will have
the world we are making.
After all, it was the world that made us.

*

Rebalancing the Biosphere
 
Orcas learn to use rocks on the ocean floor
to squeeze the liver out a shark’s mouth,
leaving the rest of the nutrition-empty body
to scavengers. It’s efficient but seems cruel.
The ideal meal pressed out
like toothpaste from a tube.
Out in Gibraltar, orca have taken to capsizing
vessels that stray into their territory.
Fishing boats and yachts interfere
with feeding and mating. I cheer them on.
Humans aren’t nutritious. To sharks or orcas.
I root for the orcas, who are fierce,
who are protective, who know what they are
and where they fit in this world.

*

Critically Endangered
 
Shopping in the grocery aisle at the bodega I turn each package over and scan for “palm oil” before replacing them on the dusty shelves. At the National Zoo orangutans swing on scaffolds from habitat to habitat—without the challenge and change of scenery they become depressed. The zookeepers want them to be happy. I want them to be happy. In the nineties all you heard about was the ozone layer and the hole we had created over Antarctica. I worried about the hole. I imagined UV light coming through like a wide laser. The hole is not gone but stopped growing. My existential dread continued to grow. Things like the Montreal Accord that saved humanity or at least staved off its extinction seem impossible now. I bury my head in the dirt. Let the Earth swallow me! I don’t deserve it. I can’t find one bar of chocolate that won’t wipe out orangutans, those strong creatures of muscle and joy. Why shouldn’t they have everything their hearts desire? Not once have they pulled ingredients for destruction from the guts of our planet. Not once have they been so audacious as to split an atom. Maybe we could try harder to be less loathsome, I don’t know. After leaving the bodega with no snacks, my child and I shuffle to the park where I lay in the leaves and think about my muppety dog who smells smells and accepts massages and lives for slices of apple. My child swings on monkey bars that she has just become able to reach. When I die I want a fungus suit. I want to be a patch of mushrooms with a forest brain. I want to watch everything and see how it turns out. I hope it will be good.