The coots

Coots patrol the lagoon – baptise themselves beneath its wrinkled cellophane. Marks on their foreheads

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like it’s a sign of faith that each puncturing will push hunger ever deeper down. Morning now,

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and the overnight rain that conspired with worry and tiredness to make sleeping a dream at best

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is smeared above houses in stretches of expired lavender, or pooled below the black and white

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of coots at their worship, bowing graciously before the sun as though water were their temple.