We burned the koalas out of existence;
they screamed loudly as they died,
but that wasn’t enough to make us stop.
The whales we choked with plastic were more silent,
as they fell into the dark blue deep
but that wasn’t enough to make us stop.
We murdered the rhinos
and the elephants starved on their long final march
but that wasn’t enough to make us stop.
No one knows where the giraffes went
and lay down for the last time;
that wasn’t enough to make us stop, either.
We hardly missed the dolphins
beaching themselves by the thousands
gasping out their prayers on the polluted sand
while we took photos.
No wonder, when they came for the children
working their childhoods to death
we didn’t stop.
They came for the young girls,
locking them in rooms with men
and still we didn’t stop.
When they came for the mothers,
forcing them to sew clothing that would
circumnavigate the globe and return to rot
in fuming mountainous dumps,
How could we stop now
was how the thinking went.
When they came for the vast oceans of the poor
forcing them to make our devices
so we could  click and like
the screaming koalas
and the mourning elephants
and beg each other
to do something,
even that wasn’t enough to make us stop.
Nothing will stop us,
not even the god we created in a last ditch effort
to stop ourselves.