survivor
for the SC March for Science, 22 April 2017
suburban deer pause in the empty lot next
door ears up bodies rigid in the light someone
leaves corn out for them they follow
the scent the creek to the river clatter
across asphalt streets at night eat the day-
lilies the kale the limelight hydrangeas one
day we find a fawn curled in the long grass
leaning not yet a lien the county will levy
against an absentee owner somewhere
glaciers calving caving carving themselves
off Antarctica where have you been where
would you go the calves drifting north a fawn
loping down Elm Abode’s not yet busy daylit
streets we will not know it will not notice
will not know that it is not the catastrophe we
expected though no less catastrophic hardly
hardy orchids budded at winter’s end not
ended white blooms the cold browns we
discover an armadillo burrowed beneath
the roses my mom says she’s never seen
them this far north before the gold spiders
gilding the air between the oaks mosquitoes
not killed not cold enough the cherry weeping
too early somewhere it’s Survivor another
season another immunity challenge somewhere
steam rising off pools of pale blue water
laced with boron and spent fuel rods resting
at the bottom a great desert ditch bristles
with warning cobalt blue yuccas modified
to blue like test tubes of blue blood bled
from horseshoe crabs Limulus polyphemus or
the one-eyed monster that sees the world
askew collected and bled for medicine and
released back to the sea most survive only
a third die the yuccas are modified to mark
the ridge the ditch the hot spot for millennia
to come
