I dropped my Ecology class
in college because everyone in it
seemed too earnest too early
every morning. Sure, I cared
about turtles, but not a lot,
I guess, and spotted owls
were little more to me
than vowels pressed between
consonants, just words I mean.
I went without a car,
because, I claimed, I cared
about the air. But since
I didn’t drive, I had
no easy way to recycle
paper. To please my fiancé,
I placed a bag labeled “recycling”
in my kitchen, and I trashed the contents
after each of her visits.
One day, she caught me, and
she said she didn’t know
which hurt the most: my
disregard for Mother Earth
or the lie. She said that she
and the trees couldn’t trust me.
She held our future in
her hands as if inspecting
a slice of cheese for mold,
and I thought I could save what we’d made
together if only I could say
something original, some phrase
as rare as a panda bear,
but I hallmarked. I threw the book
of clichés: stole roses and told her
I loved her, groveled and praised
her skin, her lips, her eyes,
her eyes which softened
with each recycled phrase.
from The Tongue