When the water runs out, the government hires us to find more. We, the muck divers, drive in unmarked vans at night, following pirate maps on parchment: X for a plugged spring, X for an old well. Long ago, cities drained swamps and stoppered the water with concrete malls; now we see nothing for miles. Wreckage – cinder-blocks half-floating in mud, pits of tar-colored scum that look, on the surface, like grease puddles. We hope for a bubble, a fissure still pulsing liquid. The muck we uncover is dense enough to drown mammoths.
By noon tomorrow, we’ll have left for the next city. Markets here will board up their windows, write No Water on doors. Rations will dry up, and the newspapers will stop listing symptoms of dehydration, will issue instead a decree against rioting. But today, as we ride into town, vendors still sell illegal salt water from the bay. We dive unheeded into pool after pool of things lost. Not dive, exactly; not pools. We swim around, searching for the source, unsure if we’ll know when we find it. The boys on the bank watch beeping instruments that monitor our hearts. In ten minutes they’ll pull on our lifelines, trust that we’ re strong enough to kick our way out. |
|
MOST POPULAR PAGES:
Poetry Contests
Chapbook Contests
Book Contests
Book Awards
Funding
Fellowships
Conferences
Colonies
Writers' Centers
Teaching Materials
Poetry Online
Links |
