by Alisa Gordaneer
he loves the bottles, the blue glass, green ones
with names like rivers, a mountain spring.
he buys them by the six-pack
at the superstore out in the suburbs
with his wife, who likes to shop
on the way home, swallows them in
great glad gulps as windshield wipers drum messages
of wet. of wet. of wet.
on the radio, children dying from heat.
he fiddles the dial, drinks
washes away toxins, traitorous cells.
he will live forever
with enough exercise.
but his jog is ruined
by torrents, rain rushes gutters
stands in storm drains clogged with empty grocery bags.
someone, he says, should do something
about all that plastic.
on the radio, drought somewhere:
crops wither like babies born too soon.
he showers in a stinging shush
that drowns the news
makes him clean
Alisa Gordaneer is the editor of Monday Magazine, an alternative newsweekly in Victoria, BC, Canada, where she lives and writes on an urban homestead with her family. She is currently working on a novel and a collection of poems.