Lament Subject Experiment

Small children in a big town found
One lot where runoff from the rains
Formed a semipermanent stream

Filled with filth, edged with living things.
Empirical as all children,
They conducted experiments,

Dropping odds and ends in the stream
To see where and how far they went.
Uprooting a few living things,

They made a little raft of blades
And twigs to carry caught insects,
Then floated it while narrating.

We were on that raft, dreaming it,
No idea what was happening.
We tried to keep it together.

We could feel everything moving
Under us, pulling us apart.
We couldn’t climb off. We were trapped.

Frantically, we clung to our lives,
Attempting every behavior
We could to keep going, but how

Could we know how we were carried
To this, how we were swept along,
What sent us to sink underground?