13 states join to sue EPA to lower levels of soot
Today we are growing extinction
like a marigold seed in a polystyrene cup:
Roots reach down.
13 states stand up.
Soot pollens froth from the tubes
like a pre-cabled television screen;
the fine coal points scramble
weightless in the trees and lungs.
The inhalation over ice - as the girl skates -
is clear and ink and rust.
Oh naked boysweep chimneystuck
knows each of us a chimneysweep
breathing, as we do
the global air, the cubic feet.
See us yet yawn
in our screen homes,
soot-caked netherparts delicate
with plummy gloss and blooming lumps,
the crowded air we gild with frequency
a nest of maybe maybe not.
Jason Zuzga is a doctoral student in English at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the nonfiction editor of FENCE magazine, and his poetry and nonfiction have appeared in such journals as the Yale Review, jubilat, Tin House, Seneca Review and VOLT. Contact him at jasonzuzga@gmail.com.