Leslie McGrath

GLOBALIA

Global Wealth Inequality: an irony

The mirror shatters. The window it had covered shows every person inside what is outside—

Worms wriggle in a rain puddle. Smoke rises from the baker’s oven.

And every person outside what is inside—

Billionaires, cheeks pressed against the walls, with only enough space to jingle the change
in their deep pockets.

•

Global Warming: a prediction

No worms because no rain puddle because no rain
No smoke because no fuel because no trees because no rain

•

Global Politics: a warning

Threat threat threat threat
boom.

•

Global Uncertainty: an answer

I am sure
of very
little. Is
this not
wisdom?

LESLIE MCGRATH (1957-2020) taught creative writing at Central Connecticut State University, and was a graduate of the Bennington Writing Seminars. Her third poetry collection is Feminists Are Passing from Our Lives.