James Sutherland-Smith
Drought
I’ve opened the National Geographic
At an article on Eritrea
With photographs whose caption reads
Amna Mohammed and her two grandsons
Travelled three days by camel in search of food.
Along the way the boys’ mother died.
The photographer has made them elegant:
Limbs like parts of varnished furniture
Arranged half in, half out of shade.
The grandmother’s red dress and headscarf
Bloom against the woven wall of the lean-to.
The little boy is covered by a white cloth,
But the older one is naked and sleek flies
Like brown sultanas mass around his anus.
Behind his head are empty, zinc dishes
Scoured absolutely clean so they shine.
Fresh from the shower you compose yourself
Exactly, a gleaming, water-pampered flesh
Whose curve has been perfected by desire.
As you stretch back and look at me I notice
Edges of a petal of a rose after rain.
Are you hungry? you whisper. Then, seeing me
Hesitate, you cover yourself.
Drops of water from your hair
Spread out where neck and shoulder meet.
I lap them like a cat:
Not hungry I say. Thirsty.
Page(s) 36
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