A lake breathes under the car park
evenly rising and sinking.
Dried reed silts limp, dead fish
flush into my dilated lungs.
She sat on the grass, legs dipped
in water. Pearls of desire
beaded as his fingers ran along
her back into the throat
of lily. Lust gushes out of the tap
into the sink in my kitchen
curdling the milk. The cream
trembles orgasmically in the glass.
Water oozes out of springs like
a secret hard to keep.
Particles of clay turn molten, car
floats as the lake reclaims itself
in my veins where corpuscles in
blood are displaced by algae.
Another poem prompted by the recent flooding in Chennai. See “Flood” and “Chronicle of Drowning.”