DARBY PRICE
Parable of the Rains
We buried the men who built the canals
within their sloping walls.
Then the rains came
and the river rose
and with each new breach
they were once again set free
carried to the yards of respectable folks
who could afford
clean surroundings.
We built them little cubbies then
with locking doors, an ordered grid
along the graveyard wall
but the fevers climbed up from the grass
sat down on a wrap-around porch
and waited for the windows to lift
while an ocean away, a woman
renowned for her dreams
carried voices to neighboring farms:
He asked if I could tell you how sorry he is
he cannot make it home.
Darby Price is a Southern writer who lives in Long Beach, CA. Her poems have previously appeared in No Contact, Zócalo Public Square, Beloit Poetry Journal, and PANK, among others, and her nonfiction most recently appeared in Far Villages: Welcome Essays for New & Beginner Poets (Black Lawrence Press, 2020). When she isn’t writing, baking, or hanging out with her rescue animals, you can find her outside somewhere, enjoying the famous SoCal weather. She makes her home online at darbyprice.com.