Is the volcano that pours the mercury into the thermometers held under our tongues. The earth takes our temperature, tells us when we are too hot, even after we’ve spent decades denying her fever. Our hands held to her burning forehead, we insist she is fine while wildfires turn redwoods to toothpicks, readying the teeth of our apocalypse. She sends smoke signals all the way from California to New York City— ash falls from the sky. Do you know the mountains of California used to look like they’d been set on fire because they were so covered in monarch butterflies? Do you know monarch
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