Water sloshes over into the new hollows
finding its level again
and the weight of it lies a little differently
over the earth.
Stolen air is swallowed now in different corridors,
the map of suffocation redraws itself.

The dogs track theft’s footprints steadfastly
through offices and parliaments.
These cupboards splintered by laws,
these gardens carried away as evidence.
Bring the food trucks and the milk trucks
to this side now.

Mass death has moved in here,
the groaning old woman in the child’s house,
and the child at the door looking out
with her wide clean eyes like empty bowls,
and the dogs moving past,
noses to the perfumed road.