Poetry

River out of Africa

The map of the world was etched into the walls of the candle, this fat candle burning lower into its self-made pit; and then awash with wax began to drown in its own liquifaction —until it found a way at last to melt a gap in one pale wall. Immediately, the molten refugees came pouring out: to stay was to see the flame snuffed out, to go was to slide into the dark hoping to settle somewhere cooler, where refugees could settle undisturbed, a river out of Africa like the first naked apes becoming pale and waxen and spreading slowly…

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