Backyard Apocalypse

We set small bowls of sugar water
on the garden’s edge. Bees were scarce
since the freeze which had almost finished
what the pesticides had started.  Still,
some survived.
PUT_CHARAWe studied the blossoms
of plants, the parts we’d ignored before,
of squash, and peppers, and eggplant
and others. We moved pollen from one
bloom to the next with fine paintbrushes,
working early while the roof still blocked
part of the sun.
PUT_CHARAIt was unseasonably hot
that year, much like other years,
and we walked on the cracks that formed
in the dirt.
PUT_CHARAWas a time when the sweat
of our brow, the smell of our bodies,
made us keep our distance, wanting
showers before contact.
PUT_CThen, something changed .

We began to walk, dirty hand in
dirty hand, lingering in our dry
garden even when the heat rose.
There was so much more to lose.

We could feel the earth slip through
our fingers, still we held tight,
we would carry all that we could.

Hetch Hetchy

There are two signs on
The towel rack.
One says, “cozy” and explains that
The towel rack
Heats your towels.

It’s next to the switch
That fires up
The electricity to the towel rack.
That fires up
The coal fired power plant.

The power plant
Sends up the gas.
Is the drought because the power plant
Sends up the gas?
Either way, there’s a drought.

I looked down through that gas at the
Hetch Hetchy reservoir.
White bathtub rings surround the low
Hetch Hetchy reservoir
Because of the drought.

The second sign on
The towel rack
Says they won’t launder what’s on
The towel rack.
Only what they find on the floor.

All the water in the city comes from
The Hetch Hetchy.
They’re conserving water from
The Hetch Hetchy.
They hope you won’t mind.

Enjoy your hot towels.

“Hetch Hetchy” previously appeared in Eric Chandler’s book Hugging This Rock

Water Cycle

No matter where we are, the oceans
meet us in some form.
PUT_CHARAAAAAAAAI am small
and my daughter (who is only eight) –
is even smaller
PUT_CHARAAand still, our dog is smaller
yet, then there are those microscopic zoe-
and phytoplankton
PUT_CHARAAAAAand the not so micro
fish that eat them and so on
PUT_CHARAAAAAAAAAAAand once again,
oil casts a poisonous rainbow on the Pacific.
Optimism is difficult to catch these days—
evasive like a baitfish
PUT_CHARAAAAAAit’s so small, and we’re
so small, and the smaller we are (like my daughter
who is eight), the more we truly believe
PUT_CHARAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAthis can’t
happen again.

Beatitudes I.

The Lord blessed us with knowledge. Twin curses, good and evil.
Why else plant the luscious tree there, where we were bound
to find the fruit? The purple and shivering flesh never lacks
in spirit. The ache and growl of our naked bellies are the price
for the moment’s delight. So, we gorge and the juice drips
sticky down our chins. Let angels have the eternal heaviness
of paradise; ours is the moment. The act, willful and with intent.
Advised of the penalties. Done poorly. Knowing
this kingdom cannot last. Looking beyond the gardens
for a more convincing view of heaven.

Beatitudes II.

Are we not also blessed, we who praise
PUT_the clear night and its silence?

Betrayed by the absence of stars, we mourn
PUT_a billion-years’ light no longer burning.

We whimper at the withered grass burning,
PUT_the breathing forest burning, the one
PUT_CCCCgreat and living ocean boiling and burning.

You who created time, who is before all things, who will remain after the ruin,
PUT_will you be waiting for us in the cool garden?

Will we lie down with you in the dew-damp grass?
PUT_Will we be comforted?

Beatitudes III.

Are the meek blessed tonight in their bundled and stinking shelters
PUT_beneath frozen bridges? Are they blessed with patience in their waiting
for the Lord of compassion? For the Lord that suffers with?

They suffer together. Their children will inherit the suffering
PUT_of generations,
the split lip of submission, the broken skin of the earth.

Beatitudes IV.

Blessed. From a word that meant blood.
Latin for praise. Blood and praise to the hungry; they are weak.
Blood and praise for the thirsty. For those who bathe
in fetid water.
PUT_CCCCCCWhat are words
to those who hunger in a gluttonous world?
To those who thirst beside the brackish rivers,
choking on garbage? We say, wait for righteousness
to come from above. But they have starved
in their flesh so that our spirits could be filled.

SPIDER / 150

Thick in Louisiana swamps

Atchafalaya Basin

Hot cypress shooting out

Stretching in that bayou

Where pipelines

Pumping black gold oil

Cross across the swamp

Like spider veins.

TRACKS / 151

How I find tiny cuts

The skin of my inner

Thighs outer lip my

Labia

Cuts from his finger

Nails small bloody

Crescents

Like beetle tracks.

SPOIL / 152

Or deep in a swamp

How oil companies

Create canals

Push earth into piles

Push mud into banks

These spoil banks or

Dams

That block blocking

Water so it cannot

Flow.

CLAM / 153

The sky is full of trees

Now after

After he hits me over

The head

With a pipe metal pipe

Hard on

The crown of my skull

Bone and

Suture cracking like a

Clam shell.

Pattern of Consumption is a year long project featuring 365 poems by Amalie Flynn and 365 images by Pamela Flynn. The poetry and images focus on the assault on women and water.