In Malick, my cousins were clearing a drain.
Silt and vine were tangled in the water.
Muscle in the water like dregs of an abattoir.
When the river came down it brought panty-wash,
dialysis swill and original bones
from mansions hid in the northern hills
The rubric of our history is synonymous with loss.
But haven’t we built such beautiful homes
on the hillside coming down.
Empires of one-one brick and pillar post.
Empires of galvanise and dirt.
I stood in my English clothes and watched
my cousins make a river flow again,
and colour come back to the earth.
Copyright © 2025 by Anthony Joseph. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on September 3, 2025, by the Academy of American Poets.
