when bamboo flowers, famine follows
those flowers bring the rats
every thirty years or so
the rats devour it all
flooding the landscape
squirming black appetites
bequeathing us disease
we dwelt in phapian paradise
shrouded by our excesses
as the flowers poked carmine noses
out of stalks that lingered
relegated to the garden
gratuitous satanic clockwork
we knew we were doomed when
the bamboo leaked indoors
a suffocating canopy
stalks snaking up furniture
angry roots in the carpet
catching ankles and breaking toes
once it’s here you can never be rid of it
you have to tear it out by the roots
or burn down the damned house
relinquish your sackcloth and gather the ash:
hold it in your cankered hands
it is more precious than gold
it is more filling than dirt
it is more natural than sin
