WHAT WE SEE COMING

Tracking Andrea Yates
J.B. Rowell

Like a Hitchcock movie,
camera lenses lapping
low-res dense clouds
circling aged fissures
levees crumbling
slow motion rage

luck of city runs course on shore.

Not hindsight
well-documented
warnings unheeded,
released again and again,
switched to less expensive
options, temporary patches,

trickle down theory of budget cuts.

Children unknowing except
for stir of dark coming,
drowned in basin
looking into calm,
dimmed eye of mother
earth waiting for each
to stop fighting,
before tucking in
side by side.

We pump the water out. We patch again.