Egrets fit&smooth as paper planes
caress the air-above-ground between
patches of trashed medians along US-1
splitting Lauderdale up-to-the-coast
isn’t the world failing—hasn’t it already
failed?—the thinned-out atmosphere
bloated with all-the-world’s-light
I’m anywhere else right now, I’m sure
in this state that swings-no-more
the chain-leashed pitbulls, heavied
in the heat, heave pendulously
there is garbage for all-of-us to eat--
cigarette butts and smashed
Steel Reserves silver sidewalks
Styrofoam dregs of consumption
are islands built to live ten-thousand years--
nothing lasts, nothing lasts—my bones
are inside-outting their buttery marrow
the Intracoastal is drowning yachts
it was delusion to think we wouldn’t
consume our fragile-little-selves
caress the air-above-ground between
patches of trashed medians along US-1
splitting Lauderdale up-to-the-coast
isn’t the world failing—hasn’t it already
failed?—the thinned-out atmosphere
bloated with all-the-world’s-light
I’m anywhere else right now, I’m sure
in this state that swings-no-more
the chain-leashed pitbulls, heavied
in the heat, heave pendulously
there is garbage for all-of-us to eat--
cigarette butts and smashed
Steel Reserves silver sidewalks
Styrofoam dregs of consumption
are islands built to live ten-thousand years--
nothing lasts, nothing lasts—my bones
are inside-outting their buttery marrow
the Intracoastal is drowning yachts
it was delusion to think we wouldn’t
consume our fragile-little-selves
Brendan Walsh has fallen in love with South Korea, Laos, and all of New England; he currently lives in South Florida to sate his palm tree needs. He has been published in Mudfish, Connecticut Review, LONTAR, Wisconsin Review, Lines+Stars, and other journals. His second collection, Go, was published by Aldrich Press in 2016. His work has been awarded the Anna Sonder Prize of the Academy of American Poets, the Leslie Leeds Poetry Prize, and a Freedman Prize for poetry in performance. More from Brendan can be found here.