Microplastics
drift like kites
thousands of feet
up the mountains,
petroleum particles
plying the Pyrranese
just as they do in cities
where we,
driving and walking,
breathe
their colored dust, stuff
our lungs
with just what we’ve
created,
what we cling to,
handy one-use
plastic bags, degrading
in the sun,
blowing in the wind.
Star Coulbrooke, Inaugural Poet Laureate of Logan City, Utah, coordinator of the Helicon west community reading series, and director of the Utah State University Writing Center, is author of three poetry collections, Thin Spines of Memory (2017), Both Sides from the Middle (2018), and most recently, City of Poetry (2019). She is also editor of The Helicon West Anthology: A Ten-Year Celebration of Featured Readers.