The Human Race

Kathy Nilsson

It won't be long before earth leaves you

Before you move your skeleton around in a wheelbarrow

Like a Venetian chandelier.

Heat from your hands can't keep the lights on.

Your animals end up living inside you.

You empty pinch bottles

And collapse tiny clipper ships onto papier-mâché seas

Ignoring the low screech coming billions of miles towards you.

Your last thoughts settle down like fleas

In bedrooms made from whole cloth in the annals of orchids.