The seeds we plant

I google videos on how to clean

a rifle while you tend to black

soil, trying to nurse shoots

like calling forth tutelary spirits. The world

rolls toward its end, a violent

spasm of carbon dioxide, unbridled

returns for shareholders and a wayward

gaze at the brightest star

at the party. Whatever. Police shoot

unarmed teens and children

die in schools and cages. We allow

for morning sun on the deck

but the planters remain empty,

the sky hazy with remnants of homes,

families turned to ash, the air

rustles with the moans of dying

topsoil. The seeds are empty. A bounty

of skeletal trees, hardening loam

as water sinks further underground,

We eat glyphosate with our meals

and drink lead and perchlorate. We let it

burn. Your shoots never come.