Shifting Margins

Antarctica: slow and steady

Ice flows
in long deep breaths
out of the mountains
grinding valleys and canyons
into boulders and dust
carried, eventually, out to sea.

I pant, I flood, I flicker
and soon disappear.

Ice melts, and sinks in the rising waters
hills become islands
and continents creep
driven by shuddering gouts of lava.

We fidget at the shifting margins
swatting new mosquitoes,
evolving new rituals,
engineering new brains.

Mangroves: finished