the earth is a little coconut
crack her open for the meat
and liquid sweet
warm her up to tropic state
sprinkle her on chocolate cake
grate walls of her inner shell
keep nothing trapped inside
and then the metaphor fails
a coconut can be planted and grow
another tree full of coconuts to sell
but not the earth
planned obsolescence is built
right into her flawed design
ravage her once and look for another
the earth is disposable
but not the coconut
Amy Baskin’s work is featured in Every Pigeon, apt, What Rough Beast, Riddled with Arrows, Fire Poetry Journal, The Ghazal Page, and more. She’s a 2016 Willamette Writers Kay Snow Poetry award recipient for her poem, About Face. She’s worked on revision with Paulann Petersen and Renee Watson of I, Too Collective, and participates in generative groups hosted by Allison Joseph and Jenn Givhan.
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