Climate
by Baron Wormser
Elyse, aged nine, worries about the ice
And polar bears with no place to go.
She lies in bed, alert to her fraught life;
Downstairs her mother weeps. The words wife,
Unfair, too long, elongate and explode.
Elyse, aged nine, worries about the ice.
Her father tries to soothe this endless strife.
He talks like that, full of what he calls woe.
She lies in bed, alert to her fraught life
Where no beautiful animals entice
Little girls to live in homes of snow.
Elyse, aged nine, worries about the ice.
Igloos melt, mothers mutter, knife
The empty kitchen air, pace to and fro.
She lies in bed, alert to her fraught life.
What’s been done is done not so much in spite
As fear—love marooned on a floe.
Elyse, aged nine, worries about the ice.
She lies in bed, alert to her fraught life.