This poem is prompted by “Letter to My Great, Great Grandchild” by J. P. Grasser

The truth is we did love pianos more than elephants,
or enough of us, or too many of us, did anyway.

As for air-conditioned air, we conditioned the air to death.

We didn’t love the stars, it was more like lust,
a form of seedy, greedy desire that made strip clubs popular.

People mostly killed plants or kept dusty plastic replicas.
We did love our ice and dogs, and some of us danced,
but mostly we just showed up and used things until they were gone.

There’s no way to dress it up,
no matter how much fudgy lipstick you put on the story,
our desires outstripped our imaginations,
so we drove and drove to clear our minds,
leaving nothing in our wake but an empty, dry wind.