Lay Waste

Withered fields and vineyards, barren
pomegranate and fig, gnarled apple;
no honey in the hive's crumpled
parchment. 

The days grow longer 
and hotter.

Birds make gunfire
noises in the trees. 

A thousand
mussels could live on a bed 
the size of a stovetop.

And so 
over a billion of them died
on an overheated stretch of shore
along the Salish sea. 

I cannot imagine
how my own body, torched 
in its home, would give up
its secrets to the air.

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