Even you, have listened for rain
in the song of the morning. The chickens
are frolicking in the yard, the sand
a reshaped compress of latent dust.
The brown & filmy sky stretches its naked hand
into the sun’s mouth to pull out
the pistils of dying flowers
& you can see each runaway cloud
congregating on the precipice of precipitation.
Your people jostle in the crowded room,
seeking space for their forlorn voices,
their skin drinking the drab heat
plastered against the concrete walls.
They fill the buckets with your anguish;
their rafters are filled with bats & mice pee.
You raise your hands to quell the rising tide,
the bone white froth on the sea
of your people’s tongue. You ring the gong
before the bemused face of your goddess.
You spill blood.
You spit drink.
Yet, the dust devils careen
through the king’s square,
playful as bush babies,
blinding you to the thunderhead
crawling towards your people,
dark & venomous, a promise of pain
in the lightning bolts filling its fist.
When will we have rain? I ask, my eyes
searching through the creaking seams
of your face for answer.
I do not know, the goddess is dead.
