[Issue 2019.49]

‘Red Tide at the Finca’, Michael Díaz Feito

Illustration © 2019 Jason Baltazar

My kids, there’s a bat on the bird feeder,
and it’s clawing at the seeds like we do.
If you get the urge for digging by hand,
fingernails in earth, remember how far
we’ve been diminished, and don’t hunger
for dirt only the up-upper decks can buy.
When ignoring this consejo, conjure me
up like Shmuel, so I can condemn it and
pass on pictures of that dark place where
my grudges will go to be reupholstered.
Here’s a hopeful forecast as you snooze:
¡fo! Our home’s flooded with sargassum.
That cross-dimensional brimstone seeps
in, no ebb to the flow of stench and love
toxins, which preserve me in the bloom,
an amniotic chickee hut from which jelly
I’ll watch you play tag or hide-and-seek
or Marco Polo in the spaceship’s vivero,
and warn you to catch what the bat drops,
because real hunger’s hollowing out soon.

© 2019 Michael Díaz Feito

[Issue 2019.49]

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