A Morning in The Anthropocene

Maybe if you saw the fog, the way it embraced the trees, 
you’d know what I mean—that a smile is a delicate thing. 

A tree fell today. A tree was felled. 
The earth thundered, but only for a moment.  

If you find the silver gelatin print, 

you’d see the barn through parting leaves, 
how it binds secrets behind its weathered wood. 

The leaves on the ground, curled up and twisted, 
show you the shape of endings; 

the trees in the distance live 
in silence, on grieving. 

Why are there always dead horses and cows? 

This picture was printed on gelatin,  
it was made from crushed hooves and bones.   

VARUN U. SHETTY

Varun U. Shetty is a writer and critical care physician. He grew up in Mumbai and lives in Cleveland, Ohio. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Chicago Quarterly Review, Frontier, Harbor Review, Five South Online, Cleaver, Hobart, Reckoning, and other publications. He won the 2022 F. Sean Hodge Prize for Poetry in Medicine. You can read more about him at www.varunushetty.com.