El Niño
There’s a season
for everything,
even for disaster.
El Niño rises up—
named after God
made child and now
name of this
faceless flood
with watery arms
wide. This year,
he pulls the dead out
from the soil
of Mampuesto’s
cemetery,
drags them
around as if they were
a blanket he treasures.
There:
the ghost of a hand
drowning
in a brown wave.
I ask the bones
what does a dove
offer to overturned
tombs. How
does one wait
until the bird
no longer returns.
***
Author photograph courtesy of Ae Hee Lee
