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Irrigation

Martha Serpas

we steal water when we make rain, the way
everything I have is from somewhere else,
from someone else, what I am

the riverbed looks scalded
but the wound is full thickness
and elsewhere

in a variegated field or on a lawn
of grass named for a saint
or a saint once removed

we can’t walk on it
eventually it comes up
dry and tired

the way we wear everything out
especially each other
listening with heavy feet

unlike the river which never tires
whose pocket we pick
down to the lint