We’ve got too many
people and too much
carbon dioxide—both
the result of mating.
Corporations who make things
prefer making things
with machines
not people. People want
health benefits and pensions
and food. Machines
want only food: carbon
their favorite meal.
In the machine bellies
carbon and air copulate.
(No one is watching!)
Gut full with birth
the machines burp babies
christened Carbon Dioxide.
Gut empty
people take what pleasure they can,
fuck,
make more
people. Happy
to be the machines’ prodigal child,
bratty and spoiled
carbon dioxide refuses
to allow the sun’s heat
to return to the sky.
Carbon dioxide wants
all the love the sun gives
close, all for itself. The hot
earth itches from the heat,
desperate for relief
burns sticks and melts ice.
Water floods the vegetable patch
where the potato the gut-empty people
wanted to eat drowns. Fire
burns the gut-empty people’s houses.
Hooray, shouts
carbon dioxide, Dead
people! Less competition!
The machines get
all the jobs. Mountains
of garments pile up
spit out
by the machines’ mouths
but there’s no one
to wear them.