There I am nursing grievances, washing the dishes,
calculating my steps, my pulse, my innermost thoughts,
writing checks, poems, petitions, buying wine by the box—

while humble, slimy, not discernibly dissatisfied,
and carbon negative, they are aerating,
feeding, defecating, through muck and drought—

…contributing to the world’s grain harvest as much as Russia.

This is how we sing as the species’ ship goes down,
I read, lyrics about loss, loss, all for nought,
despair, ruin from the air—

On the flyways, birds tack against errant winds, old haunts dry up
on the highways, creatures dart and feint, everywhere fire,
engorged rivers sluice excess over asphalt—

No use trying to resign from this ferocity,
tangled, alive, unlovely, voracious
as the worms that feed us.