False Poetics

Humans love using celestial bodies

to describe themselves, like

we are made of stars.

There are 400 billion stars in the Milky Way

and 51 trillion microplastics in the ocean -

up to 77 percent in the air we breathe.

They are falling down the Sahara

as we speak.

If you ask my vital statistics

I'll give them to you

in micrometers and particles.

When I see humans

I am crushed at how much

plastic makes walking stars.