Change Your Mind

Hickam’s Dictum


Dad tells us why climate change is bullshit.
We eat and watch him teeter
along the edge of Occam’s razor, his faith
in the simplest explanation.

Climate change is too many things
for my father to believe in it.
He watches ice caps crack
like knuckles against palms,
while weathermen warn of record summers.
Papers print pictures of dead coral
and polar bears, but icons
soon turn cliché.
One hundred species die each day.

My ancestors fled from famine
from Ireland to London,
only to run again, to be Blitzed
into countryside.
I wonder where my children will flee to
and what from.
I wonder if there will be forgiveness
for a father’s sins
cast to his son.