Environmentalist

it is the last day of the world
and everyone moves
to the extremes.

crowds die on the slopes
of the hindu kush. bengal
drops into the ocean.
bodies float like floes for miles.

a teacher from Blaine, Minnesota
goes mad in a parking lot
and scribbles lines from Blake
onto her children’s eyes
before taking her life
with a sharpened book.

it all goes. white, black, brown,
all go. male energy, female energy,
go. pissing conservatives go
as swiftly as disparaging liberals.
the money changer leaves his table
and the communist hands over
his party card before
running to the outskirts and drowning
in a vat of francs.

but in my back yard
I’ve buried a steamer
full of rice. I dig it up
and eat it with a spoonful
of champagne.

give me a clean planet
and I will soon be
as smug as I ever was.