Saccharine sacrifices
It's not enough

South of any border
We build our own plantations
Cotton corsets for callused hands
Whisper-counting the bad thoughts
To make the quinine quota
Lacing the breadth of our own minds
To the fashions of our times

Has this always been
The way?
Tenses stretch in the sinews
Where memory and hoped-for
Braid together

Summer hymn
We are the whip and the worker
Whistling in the wind