Who names the insects singed by flame?

They live along train tracks
or at the river’s muddy edge

At midday it glints
a glossy brown, clogged

with debris and flecked
with crumpled soda cans

and plastic shopping bags
It doesn’t seem to run

to the sea anymore
It swells its banks

in a hurricane and washes
flotsam into makeshift homes

There where streets
are narrow and the light

is often dim, day
is a rope which might not

make it to the other end
Jeepneys and pedicabs

hurtle through the throng
Bravado of plastic pennants

and chrome horses clipped
to their hoods, mud flaps

lettered with the drivers’
children’s names

And didn’t you hear him
call out for mercy

Should it have been
his time to die

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.