Third prize winner of the 1st Jackpine Sonnet Contest.

~after Camille Martin’s "box sonnets"

and if the molecules and if one binds to that other
on the water the water’s currents spin in the oceans
that are one water and are not empty but open swirls
to all our detritus and when the plastic sun-kissed bits
pink as plankton and red as shrimp or masked as krill and the
entropy if the fish and if the birds eat the fish and
if the birds feed their young and the young die with red bottle
caps stuck in their bellies and if the rot of the dead chicks
is washed by rain is pushed to the wash to the creek to the
sea and the cap kills over and over and the compounds
the Bisphenol-A in the cap in the cauldron and the
sea-soup mix an open mouth where the gyre spins in the
Pacific and the Atlantic and the rest of the one
ocean and if we eat the fish and if the molecules