El Niño

On the radio today, I heard
of another storm bearing 

down on the other land that still 
haunts me in books and dreams.

It churns the skies like water,
it wields its scythe like a mouth

studded with teeth. Tin buckets
could not contain it, nor tanks built 

to collect virgules of rain in the dry, 
desolate season. Mansions and 

mausoleums gleam from so much
washing. The length and breadth 

of it seems to make a robe woven
out of an infinity of solitudes.