MEKONG SONNET 2
from Outloud (2002)
by Martin Alexander

People pan this river's gravel shores for
Gold. Boys, brown along the banked white sand are
Glistening flashes of flesh, eeling or
Splashing silver arcs across a sand bar.
The evening scatters careless gold on brown
Depths: unfathomable, read in ripples.
August's hidden rocks are dry, water-marked.
April's low-water root-reflected tree,
Its gravel-grasp slipping, claws brown roots down
Into dark: the Mekong drowns its cripples.
Raw hands ache to bring bright specks out of that dark.
They strive in vain for what they cannot see:
    In my camera's entrails the sun's warm gold
    Lies locked. Their moon's cruel stare is bright and cold.