Bloom

Many moons ago            and burst-grey
there was the Earth        light-at-first

until heavy                      with mankind’s
sloughed off                    skin cells

collective weight             collective waste
a mass of blank               faces cycling

through the same           doors
doors of the same           big-box stores

for genetically-               modified foods
sealed immortal             plastic clamshells

doors to the same          sky-scraping towers
to sit at the                     same pressboard desks

under artificial              light to click-clack
on the same plastic       keycaps

doors to the same         sheltered bedrooms
to dream on                  the same memory

foam mattresses            now fed with enough
shed skin cells               to clone twin copies of us

many moons later         and we’re consumed
satellite forms                and split seconds

if I ask                            for a redo will you
blank-grey        or          bright-bloom?

Lisa Bren

Lisa Bren is a multidisciplinary artist from the rural Pacific Northwest. Her poems have appeared in The Inflectionist Review, Hawai'i Pacific Review, The Meadow, Sugared Water, and elsewhere.