No glass rain will mark the hour of our passing
unknowable cartography of shores changed by rising
oceans-
all the whales have beached themselves in protest.
Our children play with small plastic versions of orcas and dinosaurs.
mother what killed the dinosaurs?
An asteroid, my child, the earth turned hotter
than the sun and within
three hours they were gone.
mother what killed all the creatures in the sea?
O, we did, my child.
We did. We choked
the oceans and robbed and mined
and killed and slaughtered and left behind
a trail of picture book
animals. You will dream at night
of being on a boat- in the bright
smug of day a fluke punctures
the surface, a primordial
creature breaches and falls back into the sea.
Lick the salt tears from your lip, child- that is what the ocean
tastes of.