All that passes this way

is curated by invisible hands.

And tapping fingers,

watched by invisible

algorithmic eyes,

they wink slyly

in the night sky

because they know more about me

than I ever will about them.

Trawling trade,

the sluggish veins of an ancient system,

recover from an aneurism

in the Suez.

We try in vain,

to count the parts per million

of carbon

strangling the stars.

Smog sinks to sea level

like a lead balloon

that bursts on the caps

of washed out waves.

Seaweed stains

to autumn hues,

coral blanches,

currents swelter.

In the steadily encroaching summer,

undersea seasons run together.

Some say,

this obscene

Anthropocene

began with the slave ships

of the 1700s.

Black bodies

submerged in salt.

Black blood

thick enough to frenzy sharks.

Skeletons exhumed

by the storms of the Atlantic,

their chains atomized to rust.

On shore, statues shiver

and are submerged,

becoming the Atlantis

they were always searching for.

While the coral city off the African coast

feels a sense of justice

as fish flitter through its streets.

We no longer celebrate our history,

but all that sinks

does not wash away,

the guilt,

the blood spilt.

While I see the symbolism

and celebrate,

I can’t but wonder

what the point is.

When the sea levels rise

and this valiant island nation sinks,

then we will be reunited

with the statues of white imperialists.

Will our town squares gather around them?

Or will we leave them as grave markers

of a white supremacist hyper-capitalist nation state?