The Great Pacific Garbage Patch Poem by James McLain

there's a second ocean
sprawled like an accident,
a spill of plastic guts and chemical veins
choking what swims,
suffocating the tides
that once dreamed of moonlight and salt.

we did this.
with our coffee cups and straws,
our six-pack rings,
our shiny wrappers crumpled
and forgotten.
a monument to convenience,
an altar to laziness,
floating like the unburied dead
on water too poisoned to sweep.

somewhere out there,
a bird swallows a cigarette lighter
and calls it food.
a turtle struggles in the straitjacket of progress.
and the ocean,
the god we ignored,
becomes our mirror,
ugly and infinite,
what kind of emotions do you feel when I call you out about that?