Seasonal Migration

by Anya Trofimova, UK

remember how we once took a ride
towards leafless woodland, you struggling
to navigate the swelling swamp-roads,
the sediment of slush by the curb?
you said this was england.
i say this is climate change.
 
later, at sunset you sat there cold-blooded and sated
in the blaring untapped sun, the horizon a near-
blinding white, propped up by the oil-slick light
of headlights. together we watched the tarred sky
burning away, blind to the stars that once were
there where a human settlement has now burst its banks.
the trees – they’re grey and gnawed like chicken bones,
the effluent of last night’s winter.
 
you try to distil the reality from the sea
of processed oil that trickles out of our wireless –
your indifference lies panting like the tarred
and stagnant savannah.
 
our conversation laps time beyond us –
your mouth is full of times of parched throats
and cracked skin in the
off-cuts of our world. we both know we’re only
treading the brackish water of a shoreless sea.
 
they say interstate 40 is swamped with rented RV’s,
barren wasteland of road flooded with vehicles.
so, this is what we now call seasonal migration?