Three Years of Natural Disasters

                 “They ate their own children.”
                 —Yang Jisheng, on The Great Famine

In an hour it will be summer
A time to admire wild things
But all our sparrows are shot
Left in heaps of rotting trash

So in the dark where no one is
Awake I dig their bones back
Let you slurp on chicken stew
Pretend I still remember truth

As I skin these bodies one after
Another                  In the morning I say
They are visiting your mother
Gifting us silence                  And dinner

Is now gray water rice a long
Minute of constant lies saying
Words that will be thrown out
Set on fire hoping a few stray

Feathers fall on my skin keep
Me warm and safe as the soil
Burns then maybe I will grab
Hold you tight succumb to the

Terrible                  But I taught you how
To run away when the smoke
Grows closer                  To always look
Up                  Write down what I forgot.