Mudlark No. 51 (2013)

I Saw

a man taken into the ground,
in a fault opened in an earthquake,
the sea retracted, drawn back 
with tremors, the whole world shaken
in heat waves every afternoon. Also 
snakes large enough to swallow leopards, 
machete fights, people continuing
without even limbs. And my own
slighter suffering, a foot stung by a ray, 
swollen unrecognizable, bones, toes,
lost in flesh, turned purple, grown large, 
though the human was, in so many ways, 
diminished. Against all of this shone white
shoes of women who walked barefoot 
for days, then at the edge of town, 
washed in ditches and dressed well. 
Some few fine things prevail, 
the thin, tapered shapes of their high heels.

Rose McLarney | The Language for This
Contents | Mudlark No. 51 (2013)