Water, Light, Lightwater

Sunlight coils in discarded
          water bottles, a miracle harnessed 

by bleach. College students walk 
          through shanty towns, teaching 

how to cut and reattach the plastic,
          how to plug holes in the roof 

with them. Every so often, the news
          shows pictures of children 

earnest under street lamps, poring
          over sentences or sums.

One boy gets a scholarship,
         another wins a debate. A girl 

goes to culinary school. 
         What did the world-famous chef

see in their dark eyes gleaming
          in the alley, as they lapped up 

sugar syrup and ice? 
          A clump of rippled fern

revives in a palm-sized  
          ripple of light. A glass of milk 

of magnesia settles a sour stomach;
         its use goes back to the 1870s,

scant decades before the sale
         of an archipelago. To this day, no one 

knows where the 20 million dollars went, 
        and what that shine looks like.