I woke and went out to my balcony
to smoke a cigarette with my asthmatic lungs—
I saw in the stretching distance something smog-like,
something not made of clouds cast over my town.
Later I received a text message
from my sister telling me that tomorrow the EPA
has issued a ‘Code Orange’ (always bad luck colorwise)
for my town and surrounding areas,
which means that there is a concentration of air pollution
set to descend upon the Susquehanna region—
we’ve truly turned this world
into a Kingdom of Manmade Chemicals.
This cross-section of Routes 83, 81 and I-95,
heavy volumes of diesel particles from eighteen wheelers
stay trapped in the valley, settling down to ground level
to be inhaled by newborns and asthmatics and the elderly.
“Stay inside,” they are saying over and over—
these manmade mangles of the Earth that we live upon
are falling apart at the seams—soon enough,
they’ll be selling canned oxygen at the grocery store.