Alison Powell

Conditions

Animals drift out there
in the monotonous green
of Chernobyl
A fact known to most of us
theoretically
which is to say
photographicallyThey use the magnetic fields
of the earth to find their way
& develop a cryptography
for the centuries
to which we are not invitedParentheticals
littering a final corner
of this intestinal kingdom

until the sea gulps
our world of metal
down like an oyster

and the heat
having waylaid the ice
wraps a plush robe of steam

around us         leading u