Climate/Change

by Kevin Brown

We complained about information
overload—like drinking from a fire
hose, we said—as if our need to know
was water we couldn’t live without,

as if that video of a teenager trying
to skateboard on ice (while we all
knew what would happen; it’s why
we watched) would help humanity

survive one more day
of drought, a lack of interest
in life. Our houses went
underwater when we bet our
banks had our best interest

at heart; the government used the
biggest bucket they could find
to bail out the billionaires
while we were left with
that souvenir shot glass

from the trip to Vegas or
Myrtle Beach, two fingers at a time,
until we could see a section
of the sky, released a raven,
then a dove, stood on dry land

for a day,
maybe two,

but knew rainbows were the mirage
of our age, moved our belongings
to the attic whenever we saw
storm clouds gathering.

Desafogar can translate as relief
or to vent or even to become
unburdened, but it literally means
to undrown,

as if one is a water-logged zombie
brought back from the brink
of the underworld,
brought back to a world where
one more wave looms behind
us as we look back to the beach
at children building sand castles,
as if we’ve forgotten what water can do.