Future Tenses

By Karen Poppy

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So many lost.
Rain vanishes
As if rain never
Existed.
My dual wombs,
Empty-basined,
fill with heat.

My slashed through
Languages,
Shattered bloodlines.
Diaspora, voices
Outstretched and
Stretching
Into future tenses.

In stumbling mist,
My twin tongues
Taste our future.
My rubble-voiced blood
Consults narrow odds
That open like dancing,
Improbable oceans.
We will exist

As rivers run to seas.
Fresh and salt.
Mingled and mending.

– Karen Poppy