Assignment (if you choose to take it...)-- Write a poem about a recent science article
Flirting with Extinction
Because we love to flip our hair
in the desert, drink up the drops that once were
a river, we give the earth our best opening line,
You’re hot. . .and getting hotter. Let’s go
and get something to eat. Who would have thought
that only 70,000 years ago, we almost vanished,
left her house early, without saying goodbye,
slid from the bedsheets and almost
died out in South Africa, almost became
the great-great-great-great-great-great
grandparent we never had. So it doesn’t seem odd
really, that we’re screwing around the climate,
that snow falls in April and New York heats up
to a balm 97 degrees. We love to wink
at disaster, at the “I’m breaking up with you”
attitude, the sorry it just didn’t work out,
yes Earth, I have your number, I just forgot
to call.
