Are There Electrolytes in Flat Lemonade?

Stephen Nichols

Looking in the mirror
I see my tongue is white
and there is plaque on my teeth.

Felix motors around my ankles
in endless figure eights
while I contemplate
the consequences of staying home.

The man on the radio talks
about global warming—
in a hundred years, he says
the permafrost will have melted
and polar bears will be extinct.

Felix coughs up a mouse—
we watch it for a moment
expecting it to move.

I take a sip of flat lemonade
Felix swallows
Don't worry, I say
in a hundred years
no one will care.