News Reel: Raising All the Boats

The fresh dead along the shallow Irrawaddy
From the cholera in the wells. A flash of silk
Waving from the tied-up junks and the buffalo caught
In mud, neck arched inward, as the foam churns.
Further down, there is grass where the peat still burns.
We fly west with the tide where the battle is fought
Against a nemesis as old as mother's milk:
We must burn the past to feed this morning's body.