-—Seattle, Washington

Seems improbable, I know,
—but think of it this way: I throw
my voice out over water and
the water throws it back, stuffed
—like a muffin in my cheek
chock-full of winter berries,
—or banana chunks inched up
from Costa Rica, or the Panama Canal,
and now I slosh it in a mug
—the liquid fill of which
revolves according to the week:
—Java, Mozambique. The weather
isn’t free. By this I mean
we’ve taxed it silly, blazing millennia
—to make a product move.
Already it’s been weeks since
—El Niño got comfortable, relaxed
its tentacular mass along the coast,
heating up Phoenix and lashing
—the Florida gulf. It’s no one’s fault,
or everyone’s, a diffusion
—of responsibility too moot
to mete out, except in the sense
that all of us will suffer, each
—by a means unique to time
and circumstance. Understand:
—I did not want this. I tried
not to be a part of it. But either way, waves
fly at me, rising from the inlet
—in a vague wash, which blankets me
—in noise, even as I kneel to rinse
-—-the oil from my hands
-—-in a soft and frothing sea.

 

 

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John James is the author of The Milk Hours (Milkweed) and three chapbooks, most recently Extinction Song (Tupelo), winner of the Snowbound Chapbook Award. Recent poems appear in New England Review, The Hopkins Review, Ninth Letter, and Poem-a-Day.

 

 

 

Photo by Michael Benz on Unsplash