Children here prayed to Atlas;
The sky weighed on their shoulders.
And their hands never tasted water.
“There is a drought.”
My country is famous for loose lips and limp lies.
The cake slipped across the wooden expanse
A solitary pink rimmed candle
And they clustered before the pink blended with cream
When the world weakened,
Children laid on beds of sod
Nightmares almost sweetened to dreams—
But her eye still darted.
The eye belonged to Lady Macbeth
One of the orphanage’s own finally blood-free
Only six but aging rapidly—
She peered into my crib
And pulled back wool;
weighty, whispering.