When the sea rises to eye level tears become redundant
every day a baker’s dozen or more
the red list has 20,000 names 20,000 is a random number unbounded, like e or Pi though more finite
0 is usually taken for granted understandably like the sound of nomatic flocks passenger pigeons aggregating flapping, filling the sky in thickened clouds warbling, dropping, disappearing leaving a silence so profound it hurt the ears until we got used to it
our ear drums morphed attuned to the sound of the engine the clack of a keypad
we filled the gap with gun shot, cash registers the slide of plastic, the squeal of pigs heading for slaughter lathes, hammerings efficient death is noisy business
a noise we cling to in order to hide the increasing silence of billions of missing mammalsbirdsreptilesamphibians the cardinality of the empty set