Wing-deep in Gin and Tonic

for Cathy

where I’d be if I were an angel

                                    or a statue of an angel

or a bird     

                                    or an idea of a bird


Drown me in something that is not the burning ocean

                                    or the fuel-soaked lake                             



If we can’t save this planet

how drunk do we have to get

                                    to find another

If we pile into generation ships

who among us will be called Noah

                                     everywhere Atlantis
                                     nowhere Ararat

When the monks who “saved civilization”

                                    illuminated their Bibles

they first killed a calf

                                    and scraped all trace of life

from its tanned skin

                                    a book made of dead things

all books are

dead things

and soon the Earth

will be its own
                                    abandoned archive

Laura Passin is the author of Borrowing Your Body (Riot in Your Throat) and All Sex and No Story (Rabbit Catastrophe Press). She earned her PhD in English Literature at Northwestern and her MFA in Creative Writing at the University of Oregon. Her writing has appeared in a wide range of publications, including Prairie Schooner, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, The Toast, Rolling Stone, Electric Literature, and Best New Poets. Her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net anthology. Laura lives in Denver with too many pets.

Published May 2 2022