Climate / Money / Greed | Alison Stone

Warming

The weather’s moody
as a middle-schooler—storm and chill,
then unexpected warmth.
Unsure whether to hunker down
or pack a picnic lunch, we ride
the wave, pretending it’s a “normal cycle”
that will right itself in the end.
What season’s this supposed to be?
my daughter asks. Sometimes
disaster happens for no reason we can predict.
The car’s brakes fail, the baby’s
heart stops beating during birth. 
Other times the future’s obvious as car exhaust
against torn sky. Still, we’re all tired 
of the polar bear on her melting raft, wide-eyed 
and white as a bride. 
Holland’s been preparing—
building roads that rise
when the dikes break. Here politicians
spoon smooth lies into our eager mouths.
What will we tell our children as earth blares
her angst, and we have no dikes, no Watcher,
Dreamer, or Sleeper to keep
the water-wolf from our door?

originally in To See What Rises (CW Books, 2023)

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Money

If you lack character, lean on money.
Homeless folks lack the hygiene of money.

Wendy O showed her nipples, grabbed her crotch,
licked a sledgehammer. Said, What’s obscene is money.

One sister got soft being loved. The sick
one craved pity. The third grew mean from money.

Stop drinking, cut carbs, sweat in saunas,
juice kale. You can’t get clean from money.

Scrambling, hungry, poor from birth. Too many
live under the guillotine of money.

Not the chartreuse of sunlit leaves, turquoise of
Florida waves. His eyes were the green of money.

More ego-boosting than sex, a stronger
upper than amphetamine—money.

A tunnel, then light, at the start. Thickening
dark at the end. In between—money.

Scarier than vampires or demons,
he dressed on Halloween as money.

Vital to a baby, milk. To a 
child, love and play. To a teen, money.

Shame worms nibble my life, won’t let me
forget what I’ve done and been for money.

Loving it’s the root of every evil,
Chaucer said. There’s no vaccine against money.

Though he begged, Stay the night, Alison, he
had no books, just one magazine—Money.

originally in Dazzle (Jacar Press, 2016)

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Erysichthon’s Daughter

I knew what was coming.
He’d pawned the stereo, sold
Mama’s rings. Slave
to the twist in his guts,

the insatiable craving. 
What chance did love have?
Seen through pain-mad eyes,
I wasn’t even real.

The first one was a fisherman—sour
beard, wide-knuckled hands.
I left my body behind.
Again and again Father sold me, 

stuffing the cash in his coat 
and rushing off to feed, 
while I prayed myself
into a mare or bird.

Each time I swore
would be the last. 
I heard the ocean’s call, 
planned to leave at dawn.

I couldn’t run.
Daughter-training tethered me,
my devotion limitless
and futile as his struggle to be full.

originally in Caught in the Myth (NYQ Books, 2018)

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©2023 Alison Stone
All rights reserved

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