Climate Change

By Julian Day

What do you legitimately hope
to accomplish through these drawn-out days
of taps and clicks, the evocation
of your former lover’s name?
In the long run, they never really loved you
and they were happier for it. Can’t that be
enough? Meanwhile, the carbon from this process
lingers: every post you browse, each profile
you’re careful not to swipe. Each of these
leave external traces, measurable
in parts per sextillion. You worry
you’ll be caught, or worse, you might be
searched yourself. But the outcome of this game
and gradually your entire life
is neither guilt nor remembrance
but change—the heat
that when you feel it will be unbearable.
How one day you’ll be knee-deep
in the sea.

---

Julian Day lives in Winnipeg.  His work has recently appeared in CV2, Qwerty, and 8 Poems.