CORRUPTION

a big sound rising up

out of the emptiness

a hand, severed, found in a ditch

alongside the roadway

alongside the rutted dirt road

that passes through the village,

and then a woman’s body,

and then another

five altogether, let’s say,

or ten, or fifty,

and then we grow tired of digging

in the sandy soil

we hear stories of our daughters

on their hands and knees

in the offices of politicians

we learn about their deaths

in the usual way