To the New Smokestacks
We all know
why the plant is there.
Downtown
is dirty. Downtown
is poor. Downtown
rats walk faster than downtown
people in their own gutter-highway-lanes,
scurrying on extra
feet, their pink toes
grime-coated.
I should have worn
closed-toe shoes. My feet
are getting dirty; boss won’t like it
if I show up like vermin in the shiny restaurant,
toes grime-coated. Well, I’ll change once I’m there.
No one there looks at me too close,
anyway.
The air is thick
from smog, anyway. The kids shouldn’t
be playing in the street,
where the smoke can get them,
anyway.
It’s not safe out there.
It’s not safe out there because they planted those smokestacks
like cigarettes in the ground, burning coals in
the earth’s great, bellowing lungs,
all of us downtown
breathing the slow black exhale.
It’s not safe out there because my brothers don’t
stop playing soccer in the street. The windows fog
a little darker, now,
their coughs linger
a little longer. The stars aren’t quite as clear,
but that’s fine.
We’re too busy watching where we step,
watching what we say,
watching what we make.
No one was looking up,
anyway.
It’s not safe out there because the black air kills.
The black air makes the rats
slower. The black air scurries
like a million black-footed rats
into our lungs,
into us
—not theirs, it isn’t safe here anyway--
and the children playing in the street begin to cough,
and the white walls begin to gray,
and the eyes begin to water,
and the throats begin to itch,
and the lungs begin to scrape
with each breath,
and the rats stop scurrying at all.
why the plant is there.
Downtown
is dirty. Downtown
is poor. Downtown
rats walk faster than downtown
people in their own gutter-highway-lanes,
scurrying on extra
feet, their pink toes
grime-coated.
I should have worn
closed-toe shoes. My feet
are getting dirty; boss won’t like it
if I show up like vermin in the shiny restaurant,
toes grime-coated. Well, I’ll change once I’m there.
No one there looks at me too close,
anyway.
The air is thick
from smog, anyway. The kids shouldn’t
be playing in the street,
where the smoke can get them,
anyway.
It’s not safe out there.
It’s not safe out there because they planted those smokestacks
like cigarettes in the ground, burning coals in
the earth’s great, bellowing lungs,
all of us downtown
breathing the slow black exhale.
It’s not safe out there because my brothers don’t
stop playing soccer in the street. The windows fog
a little darker, now,
their coughs linger
a little longer. The stars aren’t quite as clear,
but that’s fine.
We’re too busy watching where we step,
watching what we say,
watching what we make.
No one was looking up,
anyway.
It’s not safe out there because the black air kills.
The black air makes the rats
slower. The black air scurries
like a million black-footed rats
into our lungs,
into us
—not theirs, it isn’t safe here anyway--
and the children playing in the street begin to cough,
and the white walls begin to gray,
and the eyes begin to water,
and the throats begin to itch,
and the lungs begin to scrape
with each breath,
and the rats stop scurrying at all.
Claire Beeli is a writer from Long Beach, California. Her work is published in Block Party Magazine and Polyphony Lit, among others, and has been recognized by institutions like the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards and the New York Times Learning Network. When she's not reading, writing, or volunteering at her local library, she's being crushed by a dog bigger than she is.