3 January 2025
unsuccessfully submitted 15 January 2025 for a one week residency at Varuna
the petting zoo*
g’wan, g’wan, touch ’em
the bomber’s fuselage hot in the Nebraskan sun
the micro galactic debris in your
private private phone
the rough hawser holding the intercontinental carrier of dark mucus from darker earth
that feeds your country and therefore you
splinters of the one true cross
elevated in the chapels of hell
anything inanimate or that once was animate
run your fingers down the history of its spine
prefigured for you your agony the quietude of orcas
objective as the saurian reflex mind
pat pat the minimals
here to serve your extinction
don’t be scared
the polycurves they rise
* Collin Van Son, Dispatch from a nuclear petting zoo, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, November 15, 2024