earth & blood & mining dam-burst.
é a lama, é a lama.
it’s the mud, it’s the mud.
over 300 disappeared dead.
the news itself a trickle: nobody outside the unserious country cares.
nobody inside the unserious country cares except for
emerson dos santos, who stands on the debris
of his mother’s house. it looks like chocolate cake.
it looks like a pile of shit. a car lies covered in it.
the aerial view helps me see
the flood is actually within me.
my douche water
flushing the streets.
a fallen bridge between the bottom &
the rest of the world. an overflow of
mined souls. because my hole
contains multitudes
because this crack of a country
is where i was born
i cry & wet the earth
& will wet it
again & again
Copyright © 2026 by Lucas de Lima. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on July 9, 2026, by the Academy of American Poets.
