Lifestyle

We say climate change

like it is weather.

Like it arrives politely

with an umbrella.

But it is already

in the grocery bill,

in the mangoes which grow too soon,

in the fisherman mending nets.

Sepulchral waters that no more listen.

It lives in the way we dress--

lighter fabrics,

looser futures.

In the way we walk--

avoiding streets that flood

after a single hard rain.

It sits at dinner with us,

uninvited,

as we read on the melting glaciers

between photos of weddings

and new shoes.

The world is not a dead-end.

It changes

the way we breathe at night.

The way our mothers

store water in extra buckets.

The way children learn

new names for heat.

Lifestyle--

as if survival

were an accessory.

As if the earth

were not stitched

and to the lining of each shirt.

we wear.