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someone ate a bat, they say—that’s how it happened
photographs of empty rush hours empty vegas [poeticspace w=”30″]empty beaches
fake news of swans and dolphins in venice canals
true news of long-horned goats sprawling through small towns
this is not like last year [poeticspace w=”45″]when starving polar bears reeled ice-lost and half-blind
to scavenge dustbins in ittoqqortoormilt
an article claims [poeticspace w=”35″]with so many home-bound by the pandemic
scientists suddenly are better able to hear the earth
fires pour through trees and fields and towns for days
and miles and miles and a boy who went back home
to rescue his dog and his grandmother is found in the driver’s seat of a car
with the dog draped over both their bodies [poeticspace w=”15″]dead
across three days just before last christmas
around four thousand and five hundred flying foxes fell in a heat-wave
some we get to in time [poeticspace w=”30″]says a volunteer rescuer [poeticspace w=”30″]others die in your hands
a woman rips away her shirt to wrap in linen a darkly seared koala
and tv outlets run [poeticspace w=”30″]this [poeticspace w=”60″]as good news
[poeticspace w=”20″]more shaky footage [poeticspace w=”30″]a young man running
on a shoulder near the flames and the rabbit he catches
leaping from the burning bush
yesterday [poeticspace w=”40″]from six feet away [poeticspace w=”40″]my neighbor tells me
how walking in our neighborhood
he found a pear tree and ate from it
the warmest pear [poeticspace w=”20″]he says
my skin has not been touched
in seven months
I dream that night
he asks me to walk with him
wouldn’t you rather walk with me? [poeticspace w=”10″]he says
though nothing else has been offered
heavy rain presses a flock of black-eyed susans
down and back together
outside the frame of my bedroom window
I see the sky white behind the pines
and there is
no particular end