dissolving (poem)

dissolving

it was a solution, now it is not

it worked, like the blades of an agitator

at dethreading fabric, then towels to sop the spreading

could be peeled from the waste, carrying their stopgap

contamination loads

and trashed

And the troubles entered every household

seeming dilute, kept on top of

bodies stacked against the dam submerging, steadily, in mud

New dead, piled on in freshening layers, but

they are not concrete, they cannot mesh to hold the flood

dissolving

A bird

(2025, Stephanie Foster)