You are never mentioned on Ararat 
or elsewhere, but I know a woman’s hand 
in salvation when I see it. Lately, 
I’m torn between despair and ignorance. 
I’m not a vegetarian, shop plastic, 
use an air conditioner. Is this what happens 
before it all goes fluvial? Do the selfish 
grow self-conscious by the withering 
begonias? Lately, I worry every black dress 
will have to be worn to a funeral. 
New York a bouillon, eroded filigree. 
Anything but illness, I beg the plagues, 
but shiny crows or nuclear rain. 
Not a drop in London May through June. 
I bask in the wilt by golden hour light. 
Lately, only lately, it is late. Tucking 
our families into the safeties of the past. 
My children, will they exist by the time 
it’s irreversible? Will they live 
astonished at the thought of ice 
not pulled from the mouth of a machine? 
Which parent will be the one to break 
the myth; the Arctic wasn’t Sisyphus’s 
snowy hill. Noah’s wife, I am wringing 
my hands not knowing how to know 
and move forward. Was it you 
who gathered flowers once the earth 
had dried? How did you explain the light 
to all the animals?