Aposematic Poetics

Cities are archipelagos,
Galapagos, laboratories—

Selection’s only just begun
To take off in new directions

In those concrete constellations.
And what of the other new nodes,

The ones now buried in mountains,
Consuming shale beds’, reactors’,

Dams’ worths of electricity
Through silicon clouds in the dark?

Small, iridescent beetles crawl
And breed in the landfill islands

Of logos and the countable,
All-calculable cosmos.

We’re garishly pretty because
Just toxin alone’s not enough.