Exponential
Pandemic Poetry
If every three days, the numbers double
how long before the celebrities
stop singing the song “Imagine,”
how long before the politicians
forfeit their promises
of a stock market trending
up?
When members of their own ranks
start ending up
piled into ice rinks
for the convenience of cold,
the idea of sacrifice
begins to solidify
like a continent of Kool-aid
beneath the ice sheets of Antarctica,
and maybe you’ll notice
that money doesn’t taste
like strawberries
dipped in sugar,
maybe you’ll start to comprehend
that the lies you’ve told
can’t be retracted,
are not bullets tied to strings
capable of rewinding
back into their barrels,
gunpowder fire returning
to its ashen form
beneath a leaden mold,
every decision is a lightning bolt
forking unto myriad branches
too diminutive to be perceived,
but the electricity of words
does not lose its potency
through division or dispersion,
every person touched
by that tendril of power
still feels the jolt,
scent of sulfur,
Death as real as teeth
grinding a mouth full of sand,
entire beaches vacated and unspoiled,
plastic bags lodging themselves
together like barges
driven and drifting into their own
archipelago of debris,
where the orbiting satellites
transmit images down
of a planet slowly healing,
carbon dioxide levels
reaching record lows,
even the dolphins sense the changes,
the water bluing in the canals,
the absence of nets
tugged behind boats in the reef,
every new building
is now a hospital,
every new car
is now a hearse,
every newborn child
will be raised by the wolves,
while the stanzas keep doubling
until the poems being written are unfinished
or simply too long to read.
