ALL Review is pleased to announce Rachel K. Martin's poem "Mitigated Climate" has been chosen as a runner up for the ALL Originals contest.
Mitigated Climate
I walk into a gallery
The whole exhibit
the ablation of glaciers
Massive lobes of ice freed
from their shelter
bob like cubes in a
warm drink
Wine cupped in our hands
The fans moving air
conditioned cool this
warm October night
We mingle among chatter
and laughter of visiting
friends
Casual.
The sound of canned
laughter echos from the back
I walk to see a reel of stills
spliced together
An iceberg. A calf. A colossal wave.
The camera pulls back. Each snap
reveals. First one surfer. Then two.
Back further, further back. The backs
of heads. A boat of tourists. Then the audio
reel and its carnival of canned laughter.
I am at a water park. I am at Disney.
I am alone. A lonely bystander. I am frozen, bone cold.
I am frozen but the room is not.
Its shifting of silks, the release of perfume,
the unpaused banter.
