Lake Effect, Spring 2001, Volume 5: Decima for Tropical Deluge

Virgil Suarez

 

Decima for Tropical Deluge

Whose god has opened the floodgates? Who knew
           water to be this irascible? The children remove
                      their red panueletas and drop them into the currents,
           this history of gush down the streets to the gutters.
Some call it lluvial descarga, how the fat drops

riddle the earth with an ancient calligraphy of renewal.
           For days it rains. The coffee plants drop their orange
                      fruit, crown their roots with them. A blood-fire
           circle. Women hum prayers to the Orishas, blow
kisses at the angry clouds which dream, too, of dry places.