the uptick of a decade?

If I lived one hundred years ago,
I would be an old maid.

Today, I serve lattes at a bistro.

I polish silverware in the empty shop
and try to read the forgotten newspaper.
There are outbreaks of Covid 19 each week.
Then, two pages after a spread on carbon emissions,
contributors meditate on Ok Boomer
and a few people make a lot of noise about it.

[[Mostly people who like to make noise.
Old. Young. You know the ones.]]

Outside, the smog sets a natural filter.

The bistro throws away too many recyclables.
The bistro does not compost.

“Let us not forget politics!” says a gentleman to his friend.
Debate night is a fight prep
and who’s elected next matters
to general cleanliness, life and social policy.

[[But it doesn’t show up on my breakfast plate,
if you know what I mean.]]

For now, we creep like measly snow bees
awkward and ill equipped for the climate’s change.

We are not bees.
Our hive minds fragment.

But even so,

the little moments grow up in the sidewalk cracks.
The resurrection of hope occurs in the clink of glasses.

Christina McDermott

 

Christina McDermott is a writer and linguist who enjoys exploring the connection between speech sounds and verse. Her work has appeared in Levee Magazine and October Hill Press.

She runs a poetry blog: https://pocketmappoetryblog.wordpress.com/

© 2020