LET’S KISS
Orcas are taking back the ocean. Let’s kiss.
Social learning for social good? Sailed over our heads. Let’s kiss.
When serve the people sounds more like suppress the people.
Judges. Justice. Just us. We’re on our own. Let’s kiss.
Under the rainbow, pot of gold? No, an unhoused man.
No, 500 thousand unhoused men.
Let’s kiss, under the rainbow, until we turn to gold—
then maybe, we can be of use.
The sea is full of titanic revenges.
Did you know dollars bills can’t produce oxygen?
Fuck, we’re all going under. And we aren’t coming up.
Let’s share the last of our air. Let’s kiss.
More ghosts to dance with ghosts in the deepest depths.
My ghost asks your ghost for a dance. They go in for a kiss.
Bezos, no beso, no bisous. What I’m trying to say is let’s kiss rich,
until we’re poor. Let’s kiss ourselves to rags.
Piles of rags, Shein’s shiniest, shipped out to overseas,
on ships orcas are striking down:
second-hand fashion shows in the dying coral reefs.
Guilt is our style choice of the season. Chic and shit out-of-luck.
Fuck, we’re all going under. Let’s kiss.
—from Poets Respond
July 9, 2023
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Angelica Whitehorne: “I read a tweet about kissing as you watch Orcas take back the ocean. I thought it captured the humorous gloom of our time. Let’s find romance while things are going down. It’s a celebration when Earth fights back. This poem is a conglomeration of a lot of news I’ve been digesting in the last couple weeks. Shein corruption, submarine explosions, the Supreme Court being supreme weeney heads. It always feels never-ending. It’s going to bring us down one day, hopefully we find time for some good kisses before we do.” (web)
