i ask jonny to tell me again
about the science behind
climate modelling
i ask jonny to keep it simple
not for our readers
but for jonny
because he’s new
to science communication
and no one here is in touch
with their feelings
he tells me it’s like when
your mother is sick
and you receive the diagnosis
he says the question is not
do you believe in sickness
and it is not
do you believe in diagnosis
he says the question is
does my diagnosis
mimic your mother’s symptoms?
jonny doesn’t know
my mother died of
lung cancer
i don’t blame anyone
i don’t blame the doctors
whose tools
were not exact enough
i’m grateful for the lives they save
(though i know how many
women’s lives
are lost at the altar of science)
i was cast into a pointless orbit
a world without mothers
a world where modellers
must never be seen
to be healers
and science communicators
must not rely so heavily
on metaphor
in the anthropocene
models are reality
and language is approximation
we have a living mother
she breathes and breathes
and she will cast us out