Eerie Erie
At Target, none of the sympathy cards
feels right for the food chain, shore birds
dead of botulism from eating fish
that ate the botulism-tainted algae
in a dying lake, beautiful to look at
far away, blocks from the stench
and corpses, like a battlefield
on which a thin layer of fog
hides the rhetorical uses
of shrapnel. I choose a stream
lined with reeds, a bit of water shed
with light blue under
and over and no words inside, and circle
the no words twice
in black ink hard enough to almost
go through the card, begin to sign it
then realize the food chain
will know who it's from, leaving only
the question, what else
could I have done?
Date of publication:
November 29, 2010 
