The Wake

When the levee breaks down
and the dead come floating
through the living room,
looking like a modern day Bosch,

and the oil gets ferried by a Swift boat captain,
sailing through a desert of Elysian Fields,

and the tap water runs like a Lethean stream,
from Itasca all the way down to the Gulf,

and a cry sounds out like a terrifying wind,
waking up the empathetic child in our hearts,

calling: What should I do? And what does it mean?
And how many people are waiting to die?

We hear the answer falling
with the beating of the rain, saying:
Send your god to the mouth of the flood.