If you can hear the whalesthrough your glowing foot roots,then stand up.Open your mouth.Let their aria rip through you.Let it pound up and outso the others can find you.Burrrp!Now’s not the time for politeness, my love.We’re staring down mass extinction.We don’t have time to be cool.Care! It’s fine!There’s a rumbling in your belly.Can you feel it?An inner ocean,still teeming with luminescent jellyfish,dulled by a thin coat of plastic,immortal but dying anyway.For so many their foot roots have withered awaysomewhere in between an Uber shift and a Door Dash,and besides, their heart,rick-roll racketed by rent scam subscriptions,beats too loud and fastto hear any stupid whales.Exhausted bodies hosting ghostsrunning on foodless foodand godless gods,too sick and tiredto look upto see,to know what’s happeningin our name,to understand that the cold blue eyesof the empire of whitenessstamped on our every dollar bill thatwe are forced to pray forfervently each night,“Please God please GodPlease may I pay my bills GodPlease may I feed my children GodPlease may we keep this roof GodPlease may you give me more money GodPlease oh money GodPlease oh pleaseI don’t want to diePlease give me your demon dollars Made from the bones of African child slavesPressed from the meat of the babies of GazaPrinted with the oil made from the blood sacrifices of ChevronPaper gods every oneI know not where they come fromOr how they are madeAnd I might die of grief if I didJust give me some more of your green demon prayer cardsSo that I might liveAnother day,Amen.”That is not you. You pray of course(we all must),but you,you hear the whales.And there are others.You can tell us by the flowers of light sprouting from our eye stalksand noggin crowns,from our bellowing war criesroaring through us giving voice to our blue mama,her rainforest hair slick with oilbut beautiful still.Reading by Tim Foley.