ENVIRONMENTALISM
by Nick Twemlow

In this world, the unrated world, we get to do whatever we want.
The unicorn spearing the city in its gut.
The fashion of home movies,
boy sets out for bigger
& brighter, eyes gleaming a life
living in the hazardous fray of jump-cuts.

Pool’s edge. A salt lick of coke. The zoo, where Silverback apes
grieve the dead. One sniffs the stiff body, laid in wake.
Its nose strolls every inch, as if down a boulevard clear-cut through the jungle,
searching for something recognizable. Another
surveys the body, lays its head on an outstretched arm.

The zookeeper told reporters she cried herself
into a headache.
People are eating each other in the North. But in the South,
comrade, a little girl stokes a campfire
as the shadows multiply,
as a stick breaks underfoot, and underfoot
is the first break of dawn.