things are still burning
Marlena Chertock
after “Are Things Still Burning” by Em Harriss
When the sky went black,
we didn’t know what to do.
We stayed inside for months,
threw towels over the windows
so we wouldn’t have to stare
back at an abyss we created.
I can’t imagine life on earth
now. Life on earth
is a sweaty mess.
We can’t breathe.
Children and the
elderly wear temperature-
regulating bodysuits.
Our houses are equipped
with smoke cyclers.
They constantly break.
We stay up all night
coughing. I have to tell you —
things are still burning.
The trees we planted
too late licked
by hungry flames.
Crops wither outside
beneath a hazy orange sky.
What does it look like to you
from 17,000 miles up?
Does smoke obscure
the mountain ranges and lakes,
the curve of rivers.
Can you still see clouds
casting hundred-mile
smudges on the earth.
Marlena Chertock is a disabled, lesbian, Jewish poet with two books of poetry, Crumb-sized: Poems (Unnamed Press) and On that one-way trip to Mars (Bottlecap Press). She uses her skeletal dysplasia as a bridge to scientific poetry. Her poetry and prose has appeared in AWP’s The Writer’s Notebook, Breath & Shadow, The Deaf Poets Society, Lambda Literary Review, Little Patuxent Review, Paper Darts, Paranoid Tree, Washington Independent Review of Books, WMN Zine, Wordgathering, and more. Find her at marlenachertock.com and @mchertock.