Red Flags
red flag warning living –
I take the beef out
then put it back
afraid to light the grill,
afraid I’ll become the Old Lady Leary of Louisville
no kicking cow needed
at the flag football game
I look behind me now and then
into the wind
scanning for smoke
planning for egress
today felt like a Wyoming day
all edge and gust
no serenity
nor calm
so much static
no rain near
unprepared for the future
I had seen it on Twitter –
the slurry bomber painting hills I know red –
but that didn’t prepare me
for magenta slashes across our landscape
visible miles away
just one more sign
I’m unprepared for the scale
of the crisis we’re in
fire everywhere
everywhen
our relationship with the land
will never be the same
our children will not know
how it was to live with smokeless skies
before the hockey stick curve
made itself felt
in our choking air
trying to get clean
air purifiers –
hot new accessory of the 2020s
with prefilters in an array of colors
to match your moods –
I go for charcoal
over electric blue
when we open it
the boys discuss how it compares
to the ones at their schools
especially in their auditoriums
it’s one more thing I’ve never dealt with
that these times demand
another climate crisis
dappled sun on sidewalk goes orange
and our eyes jerk up to sky –
that eerie fire light
filtered through smoke again –
I see the wavelength change before I smell it
and my heart tenses and stomach sinks
we are meant to run from this
not choke on smoke summer after summer
Colorado Alaska Sydney Medan –
wherever we go
the flames are there:
lodgepole cones explode
eucalypts ignite
jungle succumbs to palms
and now the whole fat squashed disk
of this country/continent
glows garnet red on the heat map
the only cool blue left
is boiling ocean
the men in suits clamp their ears shut
to not hear the crackle
to ignore the girl in braids
who demands they be bold by being humble
admit they’ve upset a balance
put too much black coal on the ledger
run everything into the red
