Disquiet

Cycling through puddles and rivers,
the toss of the ceaseless salting triumph of the ocean,
and finally the sky—
only to falllllll to earth
and meet the coldness of a city,
where even these are forgotten and wrecked.
A steel spider; a lotus flower.
A broken symbol, because shelter is something
so far out of context in the workworkwork
workworkdon’tstopdon’tstop
workworld of Chong Qing.
The distant promise of ice cream
can’t give faces to faceless people and a smileyface sign—
rain dripping on the undersides of shoes,
and bent metal, and broken faces,
and the endless search for evaporation—because
please, God, I want to be an ocean again, or a river—
or at least a puddle.

~Ruthie (photo by Hannah)