Ovid On Climate
By Eliza Griswold
Bastard, the other boys teased him,
till Phaethon unleashed the steeds
of Armageddon. He couldn’t hold
their reins. Driving the sun too close
to earth, the boy withered rivers,
torched Eucalyptus groves, until the hills
burst into flame, and the people’s blood
boiled through the skin. Ethiopia,
land of burnt faces. In a boy’s rage
for a name, the myth of race begins.
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