Poetry

Reuters photo

By

Lianne Kamp

More Than 90 Killed In India By Toxic Liquor

(India Toxic Alcohol)

not usually a tea drinker, I breathed in its

anticipated medicinal benefits while

nursing a sore throat and reading the Sunday paper

buried below the re-used bodies of sex-slaves

and a strip-mall massage parlor – morphed into

the newest tourist attraction and photo opportunity

below the bottom line from the Vatican, warning

that the twisted appetites of Catholic clergy

are not slaves to geographical boundaries…

they were there, the tea farm workers – invisible

among the columns of lush green shrubs, coming into

focus as they died in batches of more than a hundred

they were there, the smell of toxic methyl alcohol

still on their breath as they flooded the local hospital

before their bodies gave out and their hearts gave in

to a life where a few hours of inebriated forgetfulness

was worth the risk of death – a way to shoulder the harness

that pulled the weight of generations in an endless cycle

it was really nothing more than a well-earned drink on a

budget they could afford, at the end of a day no one deserved

I sat my cup down on the table, certain

I could detect the smell of gasoline and despair

Lianne Kamp

Lianne Kamp resides in Boston, Massachusetts. Her poems and short stories appear in assorted print journals and online publications including: Poets Reading the News, Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, Scarlet Leaf Review, Poetry Quarterly, Dual Coast Magazine, and a number of Prolific Press anthologies. She writes poetry to make her world-view more panoramic by examining it more closely.