Photophobia

By Ellery Beck

At night I think of those who came 
before me, who lived in damp alleys,
and died with their teeth clenched
in the black chemical rain believing
this was the end. Of their world

 so much remains beyond fossilized
plastics, dead coral forests, and smoke-
drowned woods. I wish they could see
everything that survived, everything
that came back, like the drooping

head of an untended flower brought
upright by careful attention. I wish
I could show them the widening gyre
of debris choking their Pacific Ocean
reduced to a clear-eyed patch of sea

and the countless animals rehomed
there now. Their efforts mattered.
That’s what I would say to them. Not
that they would believe me, not that
I would blame them after watching

 clearcuts pushing up to the suburbs,
whales wearing their own bones as
sad necklaces, children attending
funerals for each other, caught
in the bullish charge of adults.

The prognosis is chronic, not terminal.
Ask the mountains, and they’ll tell you
the bones are good, despite the ache.
The world persists in its recovery.
Across this shared millennia of Earth

are a thousand-thousand chances to turn
the ship. At night I think of those who came 
before me: a guilty generation of stewards
who believed they failed to save the world
when all they did was leave the party too soon.

—

About Ellery Beck

Beck is an undergraduate student majoring in English at Salisbury University. A winner of the 2019 AWP Portland Flash Contest and a Pushcart nominee, they are the Founding Interview Editor for The Shore Poetry and a Poetry Reader for Poet Lore. They have poems published in Colorado Review, Zone3, Sugar House Review, Fugue, Slipstream and elsewhere. Ellery is also one of the co-founders of Beaver Magazine.