The View From Saturn 

The View From Saturn 

In the time it takes the earth to make
Eight trips around the sun
Saturn completes just a quarter of one

And there’s nowhere to do laundry
No place to clean clothes
Every laundromat’s closed

The streams, polluted,
Are thick with waste
Or dried away

Yet you’re still here
And can stand in the street
When the storms roll in and rain

And soap up, and lather
And rinse and wring

Spread them and hang them
On fences to dry — the goose
That laid the golden egg
Was the planet itself
You knew that, right?

As off on Saturn rats devour
Sparrows’ spawn
And turtles swim along in ponds
Of mercury and cock
An eye toward that dim, distant dot
Turning bright red with fires and floods
Of avoidable blood
For what?