--Oceans, I said.

I wanted to make things.

--Continents, you replied. We stumbled around in the dark, poking and declaring. The spurs on your cowboy boots made a faint jingling.

--Inland seas, I said, wrapping my silk skirt around me.

--Islands! you countered.

--Springs, lakes, ponds, streams, roaring torrents! Wetlands!

You looked put out. --Copper, zinc, nickel, platinum, molybdenum, iron! you roared.

Were we in competition then? I decided not to reply.

We lay down side by side at the end of the first day.

I woke first. Dawn! I crowed.

--What? What are you doing?!

--A little light on things, I said. Now that I could see, I admired my seas from all angles. How I liked the little waves glinting in first glimmerings! But you let out a howl.

--Light! you said. --Can't you leave things alone?

--We couldn't see a damn thing, I said. --You want to go whanging around in the dark, bumping into boulders and gneiss?

--I like it dark! you said. --Besides, cataracts and second degree burns! Melanoma!

--Oh for god's sake! I said. --Vitamin D!

--I like black, black nothingness, the void! you cried.

--Here's what we can do, I said. --We'll split it fifty fifty. Twelve hours for you, twelve hours for me. Though I insist on a moon that wanes and waxes. And we've got to have stars.

On the third day you stood up, faced dawn.

--Santa Cruz cypress, you called out. --The Chilean larch.

--Malheur wire-lettuce, I answered. --Small's milkpea.

--Boxelder! you cried. --Banana!

--Lavender, I sang, a low contralto. --Trout lily.

But each time I conceived a new variety I had the feeling you took it personally.

--Redwoods! you commanded, raising your voice.

--Baby's Breath, I crooned.

--The Giant Sequoia! you thundered.

--Coyote thistle, I trilled.

--Banyans! you roared. --Banyans everywhere!

--You're so cute when you get mad, I teased.

--The Bristlecone Pine, you hissed through clenched teeth.

Still I was optimistic. We seemed a well matched pair.

--Sea cucumber, I whispered.

It was evening of the third day.

I felt like a new woman.

--Mammals and marsupials, creatures of all kinds!

You sulked and rolled away from me. The bottle of Tanqueray was empty. You hurled it down. It shattered against that outcropping of Elgin marble.

--Don't you want to get up and make things? I asked.

--All this light hurts my eyes! you said.

--Come with me! I said. --It's more fun with you.

But you scowled and sunk back into your hangover. So off I went and made

the Plains wolf

the Clear Lake Minnow

the Apache trout

the Badlands Bighorn

the Hawaiian land snail

the Ivory-Billed woodpecker

the Sea mink

the Passenger pigeon

the Lanaii thrush

Stellar's sea cow

the Eastern elk

the Xerces Blue Butterfly

and Whales. Greenland whales, Right whales, Humpback whales, Sperm whales, Blue whales, Bryde's whales, Tasman whales, Gray whales, Fin whales, Piked whales, Sei whales, Minke whales, Pilot whales, a whole glorious array! I watched them frolic in the bay until the sun hung low. Then I slogged home, weary and ravenous.

--Any of those potato chips left? I said. --What's for dinner?

But you gave me the cold shoulder. You were pretending to watch the sunset, I could tell. It couldn't be sex, I thought, we'd been having plenty of that. And in fact later that night I had the baby.

--Look! I said. I shook you to wake you.

--What's this?

--Our baby! I said. --Isn't he pretty!

--Why didn't you tell me?

--I wanted to surprise you, I said. --Isn't he a pretty surprise?

--Damn it, why do you always do this!

--Always! I've never had a baby before!

--But you're always doing something, aren't you!

You went stomping off into the dark. When you got back you were drunk. You threw yourself down and began to snore. Me, I'd decided I wanted more.

The fifth day dawned. I stretched, yawned, dandled the baby. I hummed a little tune and approved the shape of my ankles. You were already up, sharpening your chain saw.

--Nice day, I said. --Let's get a cup of coffee.

--I brought you these, you said then, flinging down several shipments of elephant tusk bracelets, stacks of shimmering furs.

--Oh how lovely! I said. --Where did you get these?

--Africa, you said. --Siberia. The North Sea. This is ivory, you said. You were tall and proud.

--Darling, I said, you are sweet to bring me presents!

While you watched, I tried on the furs, strolled back and forth, showing off my finery. Things were on an upswing, I thought, and shook my ass for your benefit.

--I'll be back at dusk, you said, kissed me and left.

The long sweep of the day opened before me, and I brought forth. Red and yellow, black and white, all cuter than cute, something to see. When I'd fed them and put them down for a nap, I bathed in the stream, ate some papaya. Then I strolled the Great Plains, admiring buffalo, and climbed around in the Rockies looking at boulders. The Bighorns had had babies, and I frolicked with the new lambs. A cloud of Xerces floated by, and the sky was a vast and piercing blue.

Then I heard your voice, a guttural muttering in the distance. And another sound: the scream of a machine. I scanned the horizon, and there you were, beyond the Sierras. You and your chain saw, taking down the Sequoias.

--What's the point? I hollered. --You just got them up!

--They're mine, you snarled. --Shut up!

Day six. Let me admit it: the children had got out of hand. They required speeded up production of diapers and Nikes. Their popsicle sticks alone used up New Guinea's rainforest, and the Big Macs took down the one in Brazil. Still I thought of each birth as a triumph for us both, but your mouth tightened like a vice. You started staying late at the lab, inventing new uses for little known metals. On those rare occasions when you came home, you stayed close to the Tanqueray.

Let me also admit that between the diapers and the birthday parties I'd failed to notice the water turning to brine. Now the air was mostly carbon. On the sixth day you excavated the Sahara and built a dam, but the reservoir didn't fill. What had been desert became a great pit collecting slag, cast away plastic bottles. By this time most of the topsoil had settled on the ocean bottoms. The coastlines were littered with hulks of beached whales. I searched among the carcasses, but I could not find a Blue anywhere. Suddenly it hit me: with the children whining I'd stopped hearing whale songs, the trill of the cardinal, the voice in the water, the silence of stones. It was as though I'd cut off a hand or an ear. I stood there, the children around me, hungry, asking when would dinner be ready. For the first time in my life I didn't know what to do.

Evening of the sixth day, and where were you?

Fitfully was how I slept. I woke on the seventh day to your cursing. I looked around, saw the tanks and choppers, the missiles in silos, those fleets of Tridents. You had a GNP and a National Debt. You had clout. But how was all this hardware going to help?

--Honey? I said. --This was supposed to be a day of rest. Truce?

I had the vague hope we might form a United Nations.

--Look at all these kids! you yelled. --I can't move without stepping on one!

--They're little copies of us! I thought you'd like that.

--Did you have to have three point five billion? you said. --And that's going to double in the next forty years!

What with the kids whining and those piles of dirty laundry waiting, I was a little frazzled and I lost it.

--Militarism! I accused. --Ecological thuggery!

--Male bashing! you replied. --Pure and simple frigidity!

--On the contrary, I said. --You're jealous of my fecundity!

--Stupidity! you flung back. --Lack of intellectual rigor! Look at this clutter! Your knick knacks and your beeswax! Your embroidery! Your paint by number!

--I have never painted by number in my life! I cried.

It was then I glanced sideways, saw the bodies of the lambs, in piles.

--Oh God, I said. --What good will a sacrifice do?

--Sacrifice? you said. --I'll show you sacrifice.

And you pulled Isaac from the sandbox and dangled his little body over the edge.

--He's yours! I said.

--Maybe he is and maybe he isn't.

--Please, I said. --I'll do anything you say.

--You damn well will, you said. And you let go.

What I wonder now is this: Did you really believe the fault lay entirely with me? Or did you acknowledge your part in it, then look down over the edge at the body of our son and think the only thing to do was pick a fight, the kind in which you could put us both out of our misery?

You stood, looking down. Then you turned from the edge and came at me. I snatched up the babies and ran away. I ran and kept running into the eighth day.

We met in the Galapagos in the Twenty-First Century. You'd gone blind from excess CPD, but you knew I was there and rolled your chair toward me. One hand a hook, legs gone at the knees. You said you couldn't miss dialysis for more than a day. And you'd quit the Tanqueray, you were in recovery.

Me, I'd had skin grafts, chemotherapy, a hysterectomy. And I was in supplemental deprivation therapy. Most of our creatures were gone. I lacked mink and elk, pigeon and seacow, thrush and trout. I was taking the drugs, but I did not feel well. There is no real replacement for butterfly and snail.

What was there to say? Most of us was gone. I regretted those bracelets I'd accepted, and the furs I'd worn. Most of all I regretted my enthusiasm for the thrill of pregnancy. I'd been a glutton for procreation, and I had rested unseeing in that creatrix self-congratulation.

I lay my hand on your shoulder. Around us the oceans continued to dwindle leaving salt flats, and the sky began falling about us in brittle pieces.

--Sorry! you said then. --Oh sorry! And Love! you cried.

--Yes, Love, I agreed. --The Blue whale, I replied.