The ruins sitting quiet on the belly
of the earth, the slush of water filling
the bleached street, the mouth of deluge
raising a toast to white hills, and
the farmers’ agony and its harvest basket
of tears, are the bodies of this poem
sickening my inside like a claw.
My wet body, a flotsam at edge
with the drenched cushions
scattered across the void, through
the roil of heavens, the sepia grief.
How the sky unheld a dirty flood
against a city clogged with neglect,
robust at the throat of its sewerage.
Tell God, this city is not a kitchen basin.
Say His name is near to the homeless teeth
gnashing in the dripping cold. Say i body
enough colours in my protest to rainbow
this wreckage into a fleeing breeze.
Yet every second of feet-sweeping,
I dread if the mouth of flood is shallow
enough to hold my head above the waters,
trembling with step towards a dry exile.
