an old man
scrawls his name
and smiles

the earth
travels two hundred and fifty-seven million kilometres
three hundred billion stars go dark

a tiny cluster of cells
evolves into a fifteen-kilo baby polar bear
one hundred and thirty-seven cubic kilometres of antarctic ice-caps melt

a royal empress tree
stretches four and a half metres higher
two thousand four hundred animal species die out

my sons grow two centimetres taller
almost one million children perish from hunger
an eight-year-old American girl is killed by a US airstrike

an old man scrawls his name
seventy-nine times
and smiles

Anne Casey

 

Irish-Australian, Anne Casey is a literary editor and poet published internationally in newspapers, magazines, journals and books. She wrote where the lost things go (Salmon Poetry 2017), won the Glen Phillips Novice Writer Award and was shortlisted for Cúirt International Poetry Prize, Eyewear Books Prize and Bedford International Writing Competition.

© 2018