air quality index 200 and the

blessings over wine, spice, and

candles are followed by grief ritual

dedicated to climate. i, like

emergency room nurses detached from loss, 

felt little registering this new notch cut from the

great global tree. only in september did it 

hit me, my anxiety building until grief became a relief and 

i collapsed in a quiet construction zone at

junction and 75, the smell of diesel sharp in my nose, 

kids on scooters making music nearby. 

lauryn said everything is everything, and so is

my anguish at the wildfires inseparable from that of

not asking your forgiveness sooner,

or arriving at the park unprepared.

protest speeches call for

quixotic cooperation yet our microcosms seem to

reflect the broader bad more often than not, the 

sour side of adrienne’s fractals. remember though,

thoughts derive from feeling:

unhappy assessments themselves inseparable from the

vagaries of the limbic system. the revolution

will not be brought to you by

xerox, gil said, but xanax is probably helping us through

yet another day in the settler colony, code red, the

zenith of everything ever ahead

Planet Detroit and Book Suey partnered to curate and publish climate poems from our community. Read the rest of the poems here.

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Bridget Saunders Vial lives in Southwest Detroit. They took to poetry as a form of dialogue, addressing most poems, lately, to their friend Lex. ‘AQI 200’ emerged from a text thread on despair.