who sits with her shoulders above
the clouds, goats and tin-roofed
houses dotting the hills of her
green quilted lap. But even in waking,
there's always some state of emergency.
Drought, a flood, animals trying
to surface from out of oil-
marbled waters; famine, war. Even so,
it seems I can deal with those parts
better than the one in which she squeezes
her breasts so the milk flowing out
turns into rice. Rice-rain pours
down every granary, and the people hold
rice feasts, make rice wine, feed pap
to babies tired of sucking on
old, dry-knuckled fingers.
But hunger is always hungry; it won't
ever be appeased. I weep from the dream
where she squeezes so hard that blood
flows out of her breasts, wild red
rice still highly prized to this day. I ache
from the effort she made and the thought
of sacrifices that never end.
You can smell it in the air: the deep
wells of our sadness, the fog a milky
bandage covering the gutted earth.
Purveyors of fine poetry since 2003.