Allisa Cherry
Mass Extinction
We kiss in front of the mineral case at the Museum of Science and Industry
our backs turned to the “Science on a Sphere” display where the polar ice caps repeatedly
shrink back at 30 frames per second, driving my point home. Like everything else this love
is finite. So, your stamina. So, my attention span. Even our bones
which will be the last of you and I to go. Speaking of bones
I sometimes bury my twenty-seven hand bones beneath your thigh and marvel
at the length of your femur on our long drives that require perfect silence
while we listen to an album start to finish the way no one does anymore.
We met in the twilight of the amur leopard. Fewer remain in the wild than in captivity
by more than half. And anyone who has seen one penned in place
golden musculature constantly rotating kohl-lined eyes seeking escape
must find this fact staggering. We will still be together
when the last vaquita struggles in the deadly embrace of a gillnet.
Maria Smith Jones died in 2008 and the Eyak language died with her.
Gone the Eyak way to tell someone they are loved until the end of time.
I know we don't deserve to keep what we haven't cared for.
I am running out of ways to say I care for you.
If I live to be eighty, 90% of the languages we speak will be extinct
leaving only a fraction of words to sound the alarm to comfort our babies
to tell you when the potable water runs out that even after the wildfires the wars
the droughts I’m glad it was you who walked with me
across desert onion and yellow coneflower toward the end of days.
Each of your whiskers is limned with fluorescent light bouncing
off the calcite and olivine. Our inevitable extinction speeds through
its endless loop on the S.O.S. behind our heads.
And somewhere in the not-so-future aftermath the ghost of Maria Smith Jones
is dreaming in Eyak. She lifts a cigarette to her lips.
A brugmansia blooms from its ember. She blows on it like a trumpet
to call her English-speaking children away from the shrinking shoreline.
*Maria Smith Jones’ Eyak name, 'udAch' k'uqAXA'a'ch', translates as ‘a sound that calls people from afar.’
our backs turned to the “Science on a Sphere” display where the polar ice caps repeatedly
shrink back at 30 frames per second, driving my point home. Like everything else this love
is finite. So, your stamina. So, my attention span. Even our bones
which will be the last of you and I to go. Speaking of bones
I sometimes bury my twenty-seven hand bones beneath your thigh and marvel
at the length of your femur on our long drives that require perfect silence
while we listen to an album start to finish the way no one does anymore.
We met in the twilight of the amur leopard. Fewer remain in the wild than in captivity
by more than half. And anyone who has seen one penned in place
golden musculature constantly rotating kohl-lined eyes seeking escape
must find this fact staggering. We will still be together
when the last vaquita struggles in the deadly embrace of a gillnet.
Maria Smith Jones died in 2008 and the Eyak language died with her.
Gone the Eyak way to tell someone they are loved until the end of time.
I know we don't deserve to keep what we haven't cared for.
I am running out of ways to say I care for you.
If I live to be eighty, 90% of the languages we speak will be extinct
leaving only a fraction of words to sound the alarm to comfort our babies
to tell you when the potable water runs out that even after the wildfires the wars
the droughts I’m glad it was you who walked with me
across desert onion and yellow coneflower toward the end of days.
Each of your whiskers is limned with fluorescent light bouncing
off the calcite and olivine. Our inevitable extinction speeds through
its endless loop on the S.O.S. behind our heads.
And somewhere in the not-so-future aftermath the ghost of Maria Smith Jones
is dreaming in Eyak. She lifts a cigarette to her lips.
A brugmansia blooms from its ember. She blows on it like a trumpet
to call her English-speaking children away from the shrinking shoreline.
*Maria Smith Jones’ Eyak name, 'udAch' k'uqAXA'a'ch', translates as ‘a sound that calls people from afar.’
--
Allisa Cherry is the author of the poetry collection An Exodus of Sparks (Michigan State University Press) and the 2024 recipient of the Wheelbarrow Books Poetry Prize (RCAH Center for Poetry). Her work has recently appeared in journals such as Rattle, EcoTheo Review, The McNeese Review, and The Penn Review. She currently lives in Portland, Oregon where she teaches workshops for immigrants and refugees transitioning to a life in the U.S. and serves as a poetry editor for West Trade Review.
Allisa Cherry is the author of the poetry collection An Exodus of Sparks (Michigan State University Press) and the 2024 recipient of the Wheelbarrow Books Poetry Prize (RCAH Center for Poetry). Her work has recently appeared in journals such as Rattle, EcoTheo Review, The McNeese Review, and The Penn Review. She currently lives in Portland, Oregon where she teaches workshops for immigrants and refugees transitioning to a life in the U.S. and serves as a poetry editor for West Trade Review.