After Byron 

In 1816, the year without a summer,
volcano dust strangled the world.
Red snow in June, crops all iced to
the roots in shadowed August,
December sunless, and the firewood
pile dwindled to fenceposts and
furniture. Bewildered livestock
huddled, their pastures frozen, as the
penitent beseeched, wrapped in
rough blankets and fear. The most
deprived rioted after they ate their
horses. Witness Byron wrote, “The icy
earth swung blind and blackening,” as
hunger circled the meager globe,
landing on the shoulders of
desperate men who would kill for an
apple. One degree Celsius is all it
took, for hell to wrap the world in its
rapacious arms. 

image: xiaolong-wong on unsplash

Tom Barlow is an Ohio poet and fiction writer whose work has appeared in anthologies including They Said (Black Lawrence) and Best New Writing and journals including Hobart, Temenos, Forklift Ohio, Redivider, Your Daily Poem, and the Stoneboat Literary Journal.