by Brigitte Goetze
We have to have oil, after all
that devastation is old history. BP’s ads show
spotless beaches, a cheerful voice announcing
thousands of samples analyzed, not mentioning
their results. Busy work, smiling faces
to lull us back into consumption;
this modern day wasting disease—
carbon-dioxide the Mycobacterium tuberculosis of the atmosphere.
Treatment of the infected lung is becoming
more and more difficult, resistances
outgrowing our options to create
workable solutions.
Brigitte Goetze, biologist, goat farmer, writer, lives in the foothills of Oregon 's Coast Range. She has published a chapbook Rosehips. Her most recent poems can be found in Mused and Imitation Fruit and in the forthcoming Fault Lines and The River Journal.
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