ruins

Shaun Hill

Grey beard of feathers
drenched in industrial
filth—deliver us
from what outlasts us:
over nine thousand
persistent chemicals 
found in blood,
breastmilk;
ghost of a briefcase
on a bridge. So many
failed attempts but
what does that matter now
anyway: whose fault;
who tried and who did not 
believe? We binged that anger 
until it was done,
wiping our chins
and were remade—
making way for the next
who will one day pass through
long after the last of us is gone,
who will build the air again
with their strange lungs,
dance differently
and not know us.

The Science

PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are a class of over 9,000 synthetic chemicals which are virtually indestructible in the natural environment. First developed in the late 1930s and 1940s for industrial use, PFAS are now detected in soil, water, air, wildlife, and the blood of virtually every person tested across every continent. They are linked to increased rates of cancer, thyroid disruption, and developmental harm in infants and children. This is not accidental: chemical company DuPont settled over 3,500 personal injury cases for $670 million after evidence emerged that the company had knowingly contaminated the water supply of Parkersburg, West Virginia for decades, a pattern of deliberate harm to a working-class community documented in Robert Bilott's class action suits and dramatised in Todd Haynes' 2019 film Dark Waters. This pollution is not only chemical but ontological: we have altered the conditions of life itself. “Ruins” asks how that knowledge can be both grief AND release through the deep ongoingness of bioremedial systems beyond our anthropocentric time-scales.

The Poet

Shaun Hill is a poet and somatic educator exploring how physical thinking roots us in our more-than-human world. His poems have previously appeared in Magma, Wasafiri, Butcher’s Dog, A&U: America’s AIDS Magazine, and the collection Warm Blooded Things (Nine Arches, 2021). https://slowgroundedway.substack.com/

Next poem: Savior and Sin by Isabel Carmen Johnson