^{(Inventory, 1950–present)}

We were the dream of convenience, the permanent press. 
We were the yogurt cup you spooned empty at dawn, 
the blister-pack popped for a single white pill, 
the slick, sterile innards of the IV that saved you.

We were the unbreakable toy in the 1962 sandbox, 
the fleece that wicked your first marathon sweat, 
the photo-bright banner that welcomed you home from a war 
you only understood through our lens.

We are the hangover of that dream. 
We are the lint in your deepest lung pocket, 
the bright shard in the albatross’s gullet, 
the glint in your daughter’s first meconium.

We are the polymer of your placenta’s print, 
the slow, milky bead in your grandfather’s cataract lens 
through which he sees a world softening at the edges.

We do not arrive as invasion. 
We are issued at conception, 
like a social-security number, 
like a name you cannot change.

We perform the trophic math: 
krill eats colorful flake, 
salmon eats krill, 
you eat salmon, 
we pay compound dividends in your marrow fat.

Our half-life is a new form of forever. 
Every birthday candle is a small, bright flare 
against the petrochemical balance sheet 
you carry inside your own body.

We are the derivative that never degrades, 
the toxic asset sliced thinner than sunlight, 
securitized and repackaged 
until the valuation is your own vasculature.

Your 1950-cutoff is a fairy tale. 
We were waiting in the womb’s warm lobby to disprove.

We are the call coming from inside the house.

We are the house.

We are the mortar in its very cells, 
the silent, synthetic hinge 
on which your own heart swings.

We are the heirloom you did not ask for, 
the inheritance that cannot be refused, 
the future fossil of your present, 
already here.

Most likely, you think we hated the elephant,
the golden toad, the thylacine and all variations
of whale harpooned or hacked into extinction.

It must seem like we sought to leave you nothing
but benzene, mercury, the stomachs
of seagulls rippled with jet fuel and plastic. 

You probably doubt that we were capable of joy,
but I assure you we were.

We still had the night sky back then,
and like our ancestors, we admired
its illuminated doodles
of scorpion outlines and upside-down ladles.

Absolutely, there were some forests left!
Absolutely, we still had some lakes!

I’m saying, it wasn’t all lead paint and sulfur dioxide.
There were bees back then, and they pollinated
a euphoria of flowers so we might
contemplate the great mysteries and finally ask,
“Hey guys, what’s transcendence?”   

And then all the bees were dead.

Curled like a genie’s lamp,
A track shoe from the 1970s among seaweed,
The race long over, the blue ribbons faded,
The trophies deep in pink insulation in the rafters.
Perhaps the former distant runner sits in his recliner.

The other shoe? Along this shore,
It could have ridden the waves back to Mother Korea,
Where it was molded from plastic,
Fitted with cloth, shoelaces poked through the eyelets,
Squeezed for inspection.

I remember that style of shoe.
Never owned a pair myself.
With my skinny legs I could go side-to-side like a crab,
But never run the distance with a number on my back,
Never the winner or runner up heaving at the end.

I bag that shoe, now litter, and nearly slip on the rocks.
Gulls scream above, a single kite goes crazy,
A cargo ship in the distance carrying more
Of the same.