Wet Bulbs

This the test. Past the point
A wet bulb hits this high temp,
Three-five C and nine-five F,

Your flesh can’t sweat-off more heat,
You can’t self-cool, not by breeze,
Not when still as you can be.

At that temp, you start to die.
When the air on Earth gets there,
Folks will die who just sit there.

Here and there, a few hours now
Have met or passed this wet-bulb
Test. As more pass, less is left.

What lives will flood those free zones
Once you can’t breathe, not known yet,
Won’t be what you would have guessed.

Is As Is

If it is as seems to be

And seems is not a thick mist,

What gives? What flows from this? If

Pests fall on us, if the flesh

Must give, if the odds stay odds,

Long or short, and wear all down,

Then what to make of what is?

There will be no myths. There will

Be no hope this is less real

Than things not seen but most wished.

The fools who shrug and half-grin

It is what it is will win.

No, you say, no that can’t be

How it is or how it ends.

What is is not what it seems.

But what if it is, what then?

Blood Pearls

You share. You share us.
We swirl like fine smoke,
So fine winds pass us,

So fine the swooped curves
Of space and time pass
Right through us. The waves

We are don’t touch us.
You share us and you
Hold us, and you’re us,

But we aren’t you. Sprays
Too small for all but
Black holes to catch, we

Make those, too, give us
Back. We’re made of parts
Of you. We’re not of stars.