Kelli Russell Agodon

In The Next 50 Years So Many Animals Will Go Extinct It Will Take Earth At Least 3 Million Years To Recover

I'm not writing about the wisteria
because I’m concerned about the heart
murmur in the berry bush.
My least favorite flower is a freeway,
my least favorite freeway is a wall.
Once I took a nap in a field of bees
and all my dreams were sweet and buzzing.
How can we pollinate the earth
if we’re all asleep? Let me tuck myself
into the bee balm, let me, like a treefrog,
fall asleep on a leaf. The sky is a novel
rewriting itself with clouds. I’m not writing
about the sky because there’s an inchworm
on my coffeespoon. What are we
measuring out today? The size
of a waxwing’s heart is the same size
as a lie. But what else
can the birds do, the wisteria is also dying,
and still they sing and sing and sing.

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