Ovid on Climate Change

Bastard, the other boys teased him,

till Phaethon unleashed the steeds

of Armageddon. He couldn’t hold

their reins. Driving the sun too close

to earth, the boy withered rivers,

torched Eucalyptus groves, until the hills

burst into flame, and the people’s blood

boiled through the skin. Ethiopia,

land of   burnt faces. In a boy’s rage

for a name, the myth of race begins.