Oxbow

An absence of temperate
seasonality
back and forth between guilt
and liberty
want and should
gin and tonic
in monsoon country.

The river ran red
brown
full
fast
furious
and we didn’t want it…

Now it is dry
mud caked and cracked
stagnant in emptiness
and depletion
and the children stand
with their toes in the mud
in the middle of a channel-
an oxbow stranded
by dwindling currents
holding only fevers.