Broken House

the ocean became a soup of toxins

the forest a fable

like the tortoise that took its time

we stalled to savor the fire

and smiled on —sun rising in a birdless sky—

even as our mouths fell to the ground as bricks

a broken house for broken souls seeking the needle-prick

chemical solace our only rocket ship

now we dodge whales sick with the inky black

prehistoric death leaking from the planet’s core

as half-lives span eons at the dump

and phthalates rest like pharaohs

in a coffin within a coffin within a coffin