Monsoon

Daybreak; the rain has stopped.
The betel palms' ample tongues, tired
of too much of what they had craved
all summer, loll down, drooling endlessly.

A hushed theater of excess attended by nothing
but birdcall. The sky is blotches of soot -
black watercolor on the morning's damp,
diaphanous spread.

The garden path is full
of young snails, hundreds of them,
sauntering for shelter, past
hundreds of crushed ones.

By Eugene Datta

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