THERE ARE NO IMAGES

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There are no images, 

no handy metaphors 

for planetary destruction 

and species collapse—

any possible analogy 

instead synecdoche: 

a crumbling ice shelf, 

the last white rhino alive, 

vanishing beaches, 

a starving polar bear—

microcosm in cataclysm, 

pollinators in a dying hive. 

 

My baby finds my finger 

as we watch a gopher 

nibble at the weedy yard, 

wet after rare rain—

and how do we contain 

the end of the world? 

The microplastics 

in breast milk and blood, 

wildfire in February. 

We are both too large 

and too small to see our part 

in Earth's own elegy.

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BIO:

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​Amy Katherine Cannon is a writer and writing teacher living in Los Angeles. She received her MFA from UC Irvine and is the author of the chapbook "the interior desert" (Californios Press) and the mini-chapbook "to make a desert" (Platypus Press). Her work can be found in Inlandia, Bone Bouquet, LETTERS, and LIT, among other places. She is Managing Editor of Palaver Arts Magazine, a student publication.

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