BAD BREATH

by Dick Altman

Pump jacks at sunset near Carlsbad, New Mexico.

Climate-warming methane emissions rising faster than ever, study says. —The Washington Post headline, October 26, 2022

NASA said a methane plume about two miles (3.3 kilometers) long was detected southeast of Carlsbad, New Mexico, in the Permian Basin, one of the largest oilfields in the world. —Barron’s, October 25, 2022

Northern New Mexico

Pump jacks looked to me—as a child

on the West Coast—like animated

Tinker Toys—Half a century later—

here on the high desert prairie—

they terrify me—Cows wander

and forage next to them—Hay

grows in the same field—Backyards

brim with them—Schools look out

on them—Indian reservations dance

with them—Oil and sister gas ops

balloon the air with toxic methane

wherever I look—Except I can’t see it—

unless—over the next hill—a flame

three-stories high—shatters the view—

Drive through “jack country”

and you’re afraid to breathe—

afraid—in mid-summer—to run AC—

afraid to hike ruins—because you

never know when you’re going

to run into “jack”—and all his bad

friends—Sometimes—at a distance—

they remind me of grazing buffalo—

their humped backs—connected

to bobbing heads—glaring down

from bluffs—I know they’re

machines—but unlike most—

they exhale—and what they

breathe out—you don’t want

to be caught breathing in—unless

of course—you want—over time—

to be caught dead—New Mexico’s

called “The Land of Enchantment”—

I call it “The Land of Bad Breath”

 

Dick Altman writes in the high, thin, magical air of Santa Fe, NM, where, at 7,000 feet, reality and imagination often blur. He is published in Santa Fe Literary Review, American Journal of Poetry, riverSedge, Fredericksburg Literary Review, Foliate Oak, Blue Line, THE Magazine, Humana obscura, The Offbeat, Haunted Waters Press, Split Rock Review, The RavensPerch, Beyond Words, The New Verse News, Sky Island Journal, and others here and abroad. A poetry winner of Santa Fe New Mexican’s annual literary competition, he has in progress two collections of some 100 published poems. His work has been selected for the forthcoming first volume of The New Mexico Anthology of Poetry to be published by the New Mexico Museum Press.

I SMELL HER CHOKE

by Mayank Chugh

as I lay/ under the Joshua tree/ I hear the rain/ drown/ the rainbow history/ while I cry/ with my Yellowstone/ earth/ rumbling in pain/ her resilience wavering/ my love/ endangered/ there’s nothing wrong/ with her you said/ it’s all a lie/ the fireplace/ in your homes/ fuming/ with her black blood/ since when/ it’s a lie/ science & suffering/ a cure it is/ for survival/ with instincts/ if you can/ save your mothers/ with pills & potions/ why not mine/ don’t you see her/ melting/ with betrayal/ breathing hardly/ with her mouth/ cracked open   

Author’s Note: This piece is based on the urgency of climate change. Last week we saw rippling videos and images of flooding in the Yellowstone national park, which led to closing of the park in decades. We also discovered world's biggest gas leak of methane in a coal mine in Russia. Although these two events might be unrelated, they are correlative and suggestive of what is about to come. Science does not lie. As a scientist and inhabitant, it hurts to see the planet, the only home we have known, slowly dying, and not doing enough about it. I hope you will resonate will this personal work. 

A cell biologist and diversity activist at Harvard Medical School,  Mayank Chugh is a poet and an artist. He is a selected poet at Through These Realities, a New England art installation project 2022 challenging the narratives of mass media that invalidates experiences of people of colour. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Narrative Northeast, The Lumiere Review, Spry Literary Journal, and Pepper Mag.Twitter/Instagram @mayank_mchugh