continental drift by Esmé Kaplan-Kinsey

at the bus stop the cosmos

disintegrates at the edges

wind spits a leaf into

the gutter swirls it through

a galaxy of mud all these

dead things under your

feet fossils and rot to pay

attention to the patterns

of the world is to learn

your place in the losing game

of survival to feel tectonic

plates scraping in their sockets

and this is the way of things,

make no mistake, all else

is prayer, there is no

fooling yourself here at 

this bus stop this blue-

chipped-paint bench 

Sharpie scrawls declaring

X loves Y forever and

every other tiny messy

human lie when three hundred

million years ago sharks

circled Pangaea as alive

as you, scuffing the black

disc of gum from the sidewalk

with your sneaker as the bus turns 

the corner lumbers through a green

light you’re checking your pocket 

for change as the wind exhales 

exhaust whistles urgently 

in the trees it is saying: 

there is nothing to remember 

its voice filled up 

with the voices of every living-

dead body it has blown across

it is saying: remember always, you

are no more real than anything else 

in the universe

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Esmé Kaplan-Kinsey is a California transplant studying creative writing in Portland, Oregon. Their work appears or is forthcoming in publications such as Beaver Magazine, Gone Lawn, and Anti-Heroin Chic, and has been recognized by the National YoungArts Foundation and the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards. They are a mediocre guitarist, an awe-inspiring procrastinator, and a truly terrible swimmer.