IN PRAISE OF POLLUTION, PART I [Esther Shipsey] this lay-low land is a chemical brawl it’ll get in your lungs ere you leave plastic humidifier; grape dimetapp sticks to the skin in ways some people pay for I used to lie sleepless under sodium lamplight brass in pesticide sky always more shine’n I could stomach aluminum blinds with pinholes for string over the dust cake gray screens with the cracks for the spiders silent as a bad fight slipping on silk between those heavy brown molecules suspended plastic crop cover looks like moonlight and water long thin shiny and above all young country songs wobbled over carried on waves through my window in between motes my body just big enough—a channel 102.5 was a licked 9-volt in my blood through my growing bones to one log flume fingertip perched on the stump of my blue radio’s tin ear all night 33 PLAINS paradox