The houses are shut, the neighbors gone

to the burning field at the mangrove’s edge,

where the heatstroke anthropologist writes

his prophecy in a wrenched tense:

“Their Gods…they’ve drowned.”

All day I choke on the pages’ knotted vines:

the totems will be covered, the Revivalists’

prayer poles, the rain woman’s dance,

her rattle sticks beating the earth, until

the clothesline quivers like a Spanish

fly, pressed to a concrete block

by a boy, aiming his blunt needle. Les mer «Ishion Hutchinson: Anthropology» →