The future folding into itself

-- The pollen so sharp

that the wind sneezed,

its belly so speckled with rashes

that it turned visible.

The way the fish walked up the beaches

you'd think they had turned amphibian.

The fisherfolk came out, hollering;

as the women tenderly

pushed them back in the sea

saying "they are our children";

and the men asked

"what happens to our catch tomorrow?"

But at night they beached again

to rest their tired lungs

and the Lord sent an angel

to switch off the current

from the light-bulbs in their eyes.

The seals already had a virus.

As for the gulls, we starved them

as the North Sea starved them,

or fed them on poisoned fish,

or on a coastal ledge

let the spray from an oil-slick

send them fluttering

and sagging to their doom.

But mankind went about

with gas-masks,

looking like pigs,

exactly

as Nostradamus had foretold.

---Poet Keki N Daruwalla is a special secretary to the government of India.