There will be no poets
in the future
the last words will be nouns
that burst into flames
in scorched weedless fields
where there was corn
soy beans
there will be millions
of climate change refuges
no matter how beautiful
and shinny the steel
the fence on the southern border
if there is a fence
will keep no one out
and no one in
the rich believe
money
protects them
and perhaps they’ll be
the last to die
and still banks
will sell you an annuity
and a plan
for your financial future
even my husband believes
we’ll muddle through
if there are 160 active breeders
left at the end
in some small part of the earth
that’s habitable
it may be possible
to restart the human race
and new poets will find words
Bonnie Billet wrote until she was 38 and was published in several journals including POETRY. Bonnie started writing again a few years after retirement and has been published in Yes Poetry, So To Speak and accepted for publication in Rhino and Anatolios Magazine. I spent the intervening years working as a landscape contractor working in NYC.
