DELUGE

Our clothes must bend to the wind
for the sun is a malodorous thing
these days. Rain wants to be let in
at the oddest of hours. Like a feral
cat that has tasted cooked meat
at the hands of man, and thinks what sin
can sully its already tainted reputation,
if it got a smidgeon of domestication
rubbed into its life? Yes, indeed what harm
other than the onslaught of a sudden swarm
of intrusive and cloying affection?
This deluge is a mere prelude.
There will be river-roads curving through
a city already drowning under humanity. And there
will be biscuit-dry towns crumbling
under the weight of people fleeing
empty kitchens and prospects. But you live
in a gated, and elevated community
of canaries. Oblivious of the weather. The
collapsing economy can barely dim
your spirit. You peck at the bubbles on a crystal rim.
Hopes and fears swirling among the eddies
of your continuous crusades. But for you it is the real
horror of imagined flooding in
and around your sculpted precincts.
Water turns people into debris. Drought
creates refugees. Your homes are painted boats.
No flotsam-jetsam are allowed to encroach
or dislodge their moorings. But you forget. Roads
are disobedient. They live outside all jurisdiction,
singing as they go, ducking into alley ways
like mysterious rivers. You can plug your ears
or turn up the volume. Draw in the drapes. Repose
with feline ease before the crackle of reality shows.
You can hold out for as long as you can. Hoard your belongings.
You can tell yourself they cried wolf too many times.
But some droughts are here to stay. No matter
what the naysayers say. And some deluges are so stealthy
you won’t see them until you’re drowned already.