Sometimes the attraction is purely chemical. Sound, color, raga—here’s my poem for a new year …
Post Apocalyptic Raga
In this bloody barbecue of a sunset
gulls sweep over the salt sea
where it has turned incarnadine,
like manganese chloride tetrahydrate,
not like flamingos,
like iron.
There is a smell in the air of nitrates.
The lake has a head on it—foaming and poisonous,
and the skies brood over us,
a simmering cauldron—
strontium red at night,
yellow madder by day.
—Erin Orison, DEAD LOVE/the Daily Slice