A sky bathed in haze
veils the prairies, bringing
another day of whitish-grey
over corn and soybeans
and the skyscrapers of Chicago.
We lost the blue weeks ago
in a morning’s harried glance.
Primary pollutants, they say,
creep down in the thickness
of cloud from Canada’s wildfires,
their path subject to the whims
of the wind. Acres of forest
in Thunder Bay burn out of control,
and miles to the south, cracked earth
knows sky-dirt and breathlessness
in a Midwest abandoned by ozone.
We struggle to inhale the remains
of a world on which we have written
our own demise in the ink of ashes,
in the well-deserved dust of denial.
Donna Pucciani, a Chicago-based writer, has published poetry worldwide in Shi Chao Poetry, Poetry Salzburg, Acumen, Journal of Italian Translation, ParisLitUp, and other journals. Her seventh and most recent book of poetry is EDGES.
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