Elizabeth Paxson
For the Ones Who Will Soon Be Dead

Extinction:
even the word is
a stab wound,
a guillotine
a hatchet
a blunt force finality.

In order for extinction to be a thing
whole universes
of beings must die
by billions before we see it.

We say, “Ah, there are still
five hundred left,”
but what is five hundred
when rivers once teemed
thick with silver lives,
the skies blacked out
with beating wings
and swarms engulfed us?

What is five hundred
to the beating of a million hooves
across an unspoiled plain?
We lock them in cages
try to make them mate,
as if we would mate in cages
in a joyless remnant
of our dreams.

                        What is one thousand,

                              or five hundred,

                                    or fifty?

The light is already out for them.

Night reeks of our relentless
unclosing, neon eyes.

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