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Contaminated
After a while it becomes routine
swabs, bandages, testing water, bathing eyes
Fields are full of green parrots today
rows of birds on wires stretching like licorice
It’s unpredictable, seepage from reactors
you can almost see them dashing around
brandishing their heavy particles
What choice do you have?
your tongue burns with thirst
As between green parrots you search
for helicopters who do not come
You remember an old Maori story about
those Polynesians, thousands of miles in log canoes
to survive they became cannibals
You’d think they could have fished or eaten
green parrots, waiting for food parcels
to drop from helicopters who do not come
Civilization they call it, wires stretching like
licorice, testing water, bathing eyes
© Johnmichael Simon
2011
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