The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: We Know Each Other By Our Wounds by Jude Marr

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Cognitive Dissonance

when human creatures hug a bottom line so hard the whole
page breaks: when paper immolates

when skylines unravel: when fine ash scatters, boneladen
across neighborhoods (rock paper skin)

when ocean boils in city streets, and gray whales rot on Venice
Beach, where Jonah skates: when Noah’s docked in bluegrass state

when wine burns: when fried chicken still has feathers, and smoke’s
egg-yellow, and red engulfs—

when coral dies while fire ants colonize drowned
avenues: when trees sing blues, mistaking hurricane for sugar

when fish ingest our plastic trash that smells like food as women
in uncultured pearls eat vacuum-sealed salmon

when smoke plumes haze until the feathered evidence of (golden)
states is seen from space: when orbit is the safest place

when lemon groves grow sinkholes: when roses blast holes
in heaving chests and silence pulsates

when, peace by shattered peace, an oiled and oven-ready
dove plucks bullets from their bloodied breast—

when day is drowned: when night’s ablaze: when Gaia too writhes
naked, staked, and wishbone split

that’s all there is: we broke the planet: there’s no warranty: that’s it.

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