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Writer's picturegabrielle tola

Flooding: A Meditation on the Memory of Water

men with wallets for brains

get to make escape plans

and leave their lineages

to try to find “solutions”

to the very problems they created

and turn off our air conditioning

so times square can burn brighter

fueled with the gleam in our eyes


el hombre no aprende” my mom to my right whispers to herself

she hasn’t worn makeup since the nineties

no foundation could conceal the horrors she's seen

she says we gotta pray

in spanish, rezar sounds like pagar


i can’t be bothered to learn

about 401ks

and pension plans

or plan ahead for retirement

knowing my mom will work minimum wage

jobs well into her 60s

i crack jokes about enjoying my twenties

before the world begins to incinerate under my feet

my taste buds grow bitter with the delivery

subconsciously it's not as funny as i express it to be


and the ocean was on fire this past july


i spent a good quarter of 2020

flooding my pillowcases wondering why

my people are born thinking about survival

rather than pleasure

why we have to clean the broken glass

on stolen land and live the consequences

of multi-millionaires

for oil

for money

for profit

for greed


I see a river flood warning

issued for tompkins county from the national weather service

but the river does not “flood”, she remembers, unforgiving


Toni Morrison once said all water has perfect memory

forever trying to get back to where it was


if we start moving to mars

I will remain

for I was incarnated to this earth

and the land has done nothing but care for me

I will remain

and live out my days

knowing that I am not to blame

and that my hands

never stirred the tsunami

to wipe out populations.


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