The Immortals

by L. O’Neill, Ireland

Plastic laps on the shore. Neptune
tossing up the meals he cannot digest;
cola bottles, containers, oil drums
bobbing like refugees on the waves.
 
All our great gods have fallen
now that we have surpassed them
in the sheer volume and nature
of immortals we can create.
 
Neptune tosses up what he can’t digest;
our past lives come back to haunt us
on the flowing tide of a sewer,
                                 we used to call ‘the sea’.